---------------------<snip>---------------
Many production jobs fail due to minor JCL errors. The root of that
problem is that many shop's change control and security policies
prohibit testing such changes prior to promotion.
---------------------<unsnip>---------------
Agreed. Usually caused by "finger checks".
-------------------------<snip>------------------
Other failures are rooted in DASD allocations. We are seeing failures
due to telecom issues.
-------------------------<unsnip>-----------------
DASD allocation errors are common; usually too small a space is
requested, in my experience. Can't speak for telecom issues.
-----------------------<snip>----------------------
Program failure is very rare in our shop.
----------------------<unsnip>--------------------
Then you have, IMHO, a rare shop. In my shop, production data was
obsolete in 14-21 days, so that's what was used for pre-production
testing. Quite often, in the early stages of an application system,
invalid data would cause a failure because the program wouldn't
recognize it. Much of our data was received via 3270 terminals and the
most common error was using a letter "O" instead of a numeric "0". Users
typing in other fields would also cause failures when a double blank was
inserted in place of a single blank, or when numerics were included in
alphabetic fields, etc. These are all curable issues, but sometimes we
really had to stomp on programmers before they recognized the issues
involved. And no matter how hard you try to plan for the worst case,
some ingenious idiot will find a way to get faulty data through the
system until it causes a problem. Then it's back to fix the input edit
process. Our input edit process grew to some very unpleasant numbers and
performance suffered accordingly. Let's face it, SOME data entry clerks
are complete idiots, and SOME programmers fall into the same category.
When you have both in a single organization, you're in deep trouble. :-)
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