Where is your source code?

For your Gen applications, the answer is of course that it is stored in the Gen encyclopaedia. But what about your non-Gen code like:

• External Action Blocks
• OLE files
• Bitmaps, icons
• DDL
• Documentation
• etc.

Unfortunately we often come across projects that do not adequately manage the non-Gen source code, probably because they do not have this issue with the Gen code. There are cases of projects where they have lost their EAB source code and do not even have documentation for what the EAB did apart from the stubs in the Gen model.

Another common instance is where you use an OCX control in a GUI design. Gen creates a .ole file in the local workstation model sub-directory which contains properties for the OCX control. However this is not uploaded to the model, so if you delete the local model directory and have not saved the .ole files elsewhere, they are lost!

You should therefore take care that all project source code is properly managed. This could be as basic as ensuring that the files are stored centrally in a place where they will not be deleted, either accidentally or as part of a housekeeping routine.

Even better, the external code should be properly versioned controlled. There are many tools for this, ranging from simple and free source code control tools to more sophisticated products. Our own XOS tool has been designed specifically for managing Gen externals, including support for automatically versioning .ole files when a subset is uploaded to the encyclopaedia.