We are a large investment banking institution that is currently moving over 5000 programs and procedures from a proprietary platform to UNIX using a front end interface to emmulate our previous platform. This move is taking the better part of 24 to 30 months and 8 programmers, and must happen in phases where only certain customer data moves platform each time.
This means that over the past 2 years, we have in essence been living in two distinctly different environments, and when a change happens to the business rules, the change must be made in both environments. We currently have some 15 other programmers just maintaining the regular code!
I have been using BC since the beginning of this project to keep track of all changes on a platform by platform basis. The FTP interface is saving me OUDLES of time in downloading libraries of code, by comparing directly on line.
We keep a month to month baseline of the original platform that is compared to current code, and modified files are then segregated and compared to the new UNIX code to ensure that changes have been made cross platform and that no regression occurs.
We also use BC to QA our results, comparing report output and intermediate datafiles to ensure that there are no unexpected changes as we migrate.
BC has saved us months of work, and makes programs like DIFF seem totally archane in their usage and functionality.
Of the features I like best is the ability to limit comparisons by column, as well as removing comparisons of literals and trailing / embeded spaces.
Now if I could only figure out how to have it ignore comments and/or limit it's comparisons to comment changes
This means that over the past 2 years, we have in essence been living in two distinctly different environments, and when a change happens to the business rules, the change must be made in both environments. We currently have some 15 other programmers just maintaining the regular code!
I have been using BC since the beginning of this project to keep track of all changes on a platform by platform basis. The FTP interface is saving me OUDLES of time in downloading libraries of code, by comparing directly on line.
We keep a month to month baseline of the original platform that is compared to current code, and modified files are then segregated and compared to the new UNIX code to ensure that changes have been made cross platform and that no regression occurs.
We also use BC to QA our results, comparing report output and intermediate datafiles to ensure that there are no unexpected changes as we migrate.
BC has saved us months of work, and makes programs like DIFF seem totally archane in their usage and functionality.
Of the features I like best is the ability to limit comparisons by column, as well as removing comparisons of literals and trailing / embeded spaces.
Now if I could only figure out how to have it ignore comments and/or limit it's comparisons to comment changes
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