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Date:	Thu, 17 Jul 2003 09:47:19 PDT7
From:	"Lynn H. Maxson" <lmaxson@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	< "scoug-programming@scoug.com" > scoug-programming@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: button challenged

Content Type: text/plain

Peter, (I'll save repeating myself)

You don't want it with one piece of software. You want it
with all software. You find the need systemic. You should
opt for a systemic solution. Thus it should not occur as an
programmer or programming add-on.

If you have a system from which all software (and thus
software source) derives and resides, it has a data
repository/directory. If, as I propose, the basic reusable unit is
the statement, text or code, then it gets a system-assigned
name.

That says you have a name for all data and all source at all
levels of each: data and source elements and all higher level
assemblies of elements and assemblies. Now a name is
nothing if not unique. Otherwise you have different things
with the same name: homonyms.

So it is with software. Versioning is no more than a naming
convention of appending something to a name to make it
distinct (unique) from any other, e.g. a daily build number or
version number of Mozilla. We have over the centuries
developed a simple system of appending an index to a name
to make it unique, whether "senior", "junior", or "the third".

When you have a systemic means of insuring (though
software) unique names through automatic indexing (again
through software), then versioning is not some "add-on"
convenience like SVC, but instead is "intrinsic" builtin.
Moreover it exists for everything which has a name, which in
the proposed system occurs for every source element (data,
text, and code) as well as all assemblies of elements and
assemblies.

So neither the program nor the programmer has to do
anything special. It isn't something you have to add to a
program. It's intrinsic in the source from which the program
arises. You enter the name. You get the versions available.
You select from the choices.

You may think it more convenient to have this "query" feature
in every program to retrieve it from the data
repository/directory, but that implies that you have no
intention from relieving yourself from third-party dependence,
an open source choice you choose not to invoke. In that
instance you have no personal use for open source regardless
of what others may use. On the other hand if you
participated in open source the software tool would provide
the information independently: you would not have to
incorporate it in every package.

The choice at that time is yours, except that at the moment it
doesn't exist. In fact open source doesn't have a data
repository/directory but only restricted and limited versioning
systems like SVC in which you not the software have to do
both the naming and the maintenance. Even without any
occurrence of human error this takes up unnecessary time in
clerical efforts contributing to the ever increasing cost of
software maintenance. When you add in human error...well,
the cost increases even more.

The truth is that you want to solve a problem which shouldn't
exist but does. Instead of eliminating it, you want to
complicate it. That leads to even more expense of human
resources leading to even more expensive software.

So if I seem partial to a system which applies to all software,
reducing whatever I have to do to any, please forgive me. I
just want software to do what I want it to do and not what
someone else had in mind. Then again I'm still relatively low
on the learning curve for Relish. Ah, how soon they
forget.

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