LAE

Note: This was originally posted by an inactive account. Content was preserved by moving under an admin account.

Originally posted by: dkhuon@gogoair.com

Last Friday I had an unpleasant experience with deploying a graph at the last minute before the end of the month. Needless to say, most of my problems stem from my newness to Lavastorm.

[my gripes]
However, the unreliable tabs to capture the run parameters for each environment are as much to blame. After setting up the values for DEV, we have to populate the other tabs for other environments. If I know by heart the correct values of these parameters , or if there are not many of them to deal with, it would have been a snap. Just enter them 1-by-1, and click OK when done with each environment, all your precious entries would be safely preserved.

But, it was an overwhelming task when by mid of a page, I had to remember what was entered on the previous page (such as DbURL, DbDriver, etc.. for various database connections and vendors,). So I switched back and forth between the done tabs and current "in-progress" tab. Low and behold, when I switched back to the current page, all my previously entered values are gone. By going back and forth and losing entries and my concentration, I ended making typo mistakes. People have told me that this "little" glitch will be eventually fixed in the near future.

[my contentions]
Preparations for deploying app into the production environment is one of the most crucial time of the development cycle, so many aspects and circumstances that could derail the most perfectly developed solution. This tool should make it easy for developer(s) to transition from a development mode to the production mode. A small glitch in the process has broad "production" ramification. Anything Lavastorm can do in its next releases to make this process less painful, will be a big help for us.

[my proposals]
Not knowing the internal complexities of this tool, I can only "imagine easy solution" from the outside. One possibility to "manage" the run parameters well in the following manner:
1. allow each shop / enterprise to setup some template of standard parameters and default values to promote consistency within the enterprise.
2. let the developer pick and choose the standard parameter name, and its default value from this template to import into the Parameter Declaration tab.
3. The default values in the Parameter Declaration tab will be used to automatically populate other environment upon its creation time.
4. allow the developer to change the values of each parameter environment either partially, or in "full". Use font color or style markup to highlight the portion(s) of the values that change
5. allow the developer to reset the value to its default when desired
6. in our shop here, the production parameters always use the predefined values {{*parm-name*}}, which will be evaluated at execution time through a combination of a couple of prop (common.brs, <graph>.brs) files. This tool could facilitate their entry by providing an abbreviated value such as ** which will be expended to the runtime brs file.

Again, the above items are a by-product of imagination only. We are hoping that Lavastorm will implement a solution to that effect, while also maintaining a fit with the current architecture of its tool. This will help us be more productive and more joyful using it. Thanks.

Note: This was originally posted by an inactive account. Content was preserved by moving under an admin account.

Originally posted by: stonysmith

I too have been bitten by the bug.. if you flip back and forth between two RUNS too much, then your changes are not saved.

There is a simple workaround for it.. Close your graph, then find the BRP file and edit it with a text editor. Just copy the lines from one RUN to the next. When you then open the graph, you'll have all the new values.

The one line that you should NOT copy is the file= line.. that needs to be unique across each RUN.

Note: This was originally posted by an inactive account. Content was preserved by moving under an admin account.

Originally posted by: dkhuon@gogoair.com

Originally posted by: stonysmith
					

I too have been bitten by the bug.. if you flip back and forth between two RUNS too much, then your changes are not saved.


There is a simple workaround for it.. Close your graph, then find the BRP file and edit it with a text editor.  Just copy the lines from one RUN to the next.  When you then open the graph, you'll have all the new values.


The one line that you should NOT copy is the   file=    line.. that needs to be unique across each RUN.
			

This is a great suggestion. It might work for me. I will try it tomorrow.

Nonetheless, I still feel strongly that Lavastorm can improve the product usability by fixing this problem. I feel also that the desired features as outlined in my proposition would give us additional flexibility in dealing with this issue: (1) an enterprise-wide template for parameters, (2) Allow overtyping the default of each parameter value, (3) simplify the editing of {{*parm-name*}} value for the generation of the Production (or any) environment.

Thanks again for providing a work-around solution.

Note: This was originally posted by an inactive account. Content was preserved by moving under an admin account.

Originally posted by: Tim Meagher

Hi,

Can I just check which version of the LAE you are using?
There have been some fixes in this area in recent releases, so it could be that this issue has been resolved.
Although if you are still running into problems here, I guess there must be at least a bug or two left to fix here.

As a side note, for the next major release of the LAE we are working on improving the automated execution services offered with the LAE for deployed, automated BRX execution.
These changes should make the maintenance of these parameters easier.

Regards,
Tim.

Note: This was originally posted by an inactive account. Content was preserved by moving under an admin account.

Originally posted by: ltolleson

Tim, this customer is currently on 4.6.0.

Note: This was originally posted by an inactive account. Content was preserved by moving under an admin account.

Originally posted by: dkhuon@gogoair.com

We are still at 4.6.0, going to 4.6.1 in a near future.

Great to hear that improvements in this area are in store for us, in the next major release. Thanks for your post, and sorry for my late reply.

Note: This was originally posted by an inactive account. Content was preserved by moving under an admin account.

Originally posted by: dkhuon@gogoair.com

Oops, Larry bea me to the punch. Thanks, Larry.