Re: publish a pl/sql pkg

Hi Doug,

Read ch.1 (The tarpit) from the famous, must read book 'The Mythical Manmonth' by Frederick P. Brooks.
This book is a collection of essays. The first edition was published in 1974 (!)
Apalling how pretty much all of his observations still apply, and people in our trade refuse to learn lessons.
We seem still to prefer our trial and error methods.

In short 'The tarpit' tells that 'A program' is complete, ready to run by the author on the system on it was developed. 'A program' is developed by a single developer, and often used as his reference when he estimates the time needed to develop something. Now convert 'A program' into a more useful object. Two ways are open: Make it a programming product: It can be run, tested, extended by anybody. This make it three times as costly as 'A program' itself. Another way is to make it a 'programming system'. In short: using precisely defined interfaces, using a prescribed budget of resources, being tested with other system components, in all expected combinations. Again, cost factor is at least three times the cost of 'A program'. Finally, combine the two conversions: 'Make it a prgrammings systems product'. This will multiply the original cost by 9.

Of course my excerpt is far too short, incomplete. Just read the book. I consider it mandatory for all in our trade, and it contains other historical, enlightening essays, like 'No silver Bullets', 'The mythical Manmonth' and many others!

Best regards,

Carel-Jan Engel

===
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. (Derek Bok) ===

On Sat, 2007-09-15 at 11:32 -0500, Doug Gernaat wrote:

> haha... exactly right!
>
> this started out as a small in-house type app.
> now other external units need to do SOME of
> the same programming that we have done.
> while other units do their own development,
> there might be security concerns where we feel
> that this SOME should not be done in multiple
> environments. so now... there are talks about
> standards - and offering up what we have done
> to others as that possible standard(which sounds
> reasonable to me).
>
> thanks for the info
> -doug-
>
>
> >>> "Jared Still" <jkstill_at_gmail.com> 9/15/2007 10:19:02 AM >>>
> On 9/14/07, Doug Gernaat <dag_at_its.msstate.edu> wrote:

<Snip>

> Sharing is a great idea.
>
> Just keep in mind what will happen if people make use of it.
>
> * enhancements will be requested. You will have to make them.
> * bugs may be found. You will have to fix them
> * whatever data it relies on will be changed. You will have to modify the
> code.

<Snip>

> There's nothing wrong with this, other than it tends to interfere with
> everything
> else that a DBA normally does, which all adds up to extra time spent
> working.

<Snip>

> --
> Jared Still
> Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist

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