Exits are a good alternative when: 1. The skillful author never retires,
finds a better job, gets laid off, is transferred, gets fired, wins the
lottery, or ages. 2. The company never is merged, acquired, downsizes, asks
for a government bailout, acquires another RACF company. 3. The source is
never misplaced. 4. zOS is never upgraded from OS390, MVS/ESA, MVS-prior
flavors.....
Else, the term exit should be renamed to "future headache for its
inheritors." 5% of my experiences involved exits where the original author
was still available...
Jaded. :-(
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:ibm-m...@bama.ua.edu] On Behalf
Of Rick Fochtman
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 12:34 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: RACF password & id checking
----------------------------------------<snip>------------------------------
-----
IMHO: exits as a subspecies are evil critters. They become an ongoing
maintenance challenge and tend to attract unwelcome attention from auditors.
Exits are hard to write, hard to stress test, and introduce a level of risk.
You need extraordinary measures in place to protect the code.
-------------------------------------<unsnip>-------------------------------
------
I disagree, Hal. Exits CAN be overused and poorly coded; no argument there.
But they often provide the only mechanism of tayloring function to fit
business or technical needs, or sometimes arbitrary mandates from senior
management. Testing a new installation or upgraded level of the OS need not
be excessively delayed by the presence of exits; you just need to have good,
solid code and a good testing methodology in place.
But you need that anyway, don't you? As far as auditors are concerned, if
they know what they're actually auditing, then they will understand reasoned
arguments in favor of the appropriate exit. And of course you're going to
protect ANY exit as carefully, or more carefully, than any other piece of
APF-authorized code. Right?
--
Rick
--
Remember that if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes.
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