|
By David A. Gray, MBA, Chief Wizard, WizardWrx
This article highlights a few of my many accomplishments over almost three decades
in the computer industry.
Breakthrough Technology
BugStalker™ — My BugStalker™ module for COBOL programs is a boon
to programmers because it enables them to tell at a glance
exactly which of several possible paths a failed program took
on its way to the point of failure. Because it is integrated
into the program source code, the report is much easier to
read than the crude trace stack still in common use today.
- In 1979, while working at
Dallas Federal Savings and Loan Association, of
Dallas, Texas I developed the first version of my
BugStalker™ module for COBOL
programs. The table generated by this module, inspired by the
trace listings generated by the Debug Trace statement in most
versions of the COBOL compiler, provided an efficient way to
have a similar feature in production programs. When implemented
in production programs, this table greatly expedites debugging
by showing programmers exactly the path taken by a program to
the point where the crash happened.
- In 1980, while working at
InterFirst Services Corporation,
also of Dallas, Texas Ported the
BugStalker™ module to IBM System/36 COBOL and IBM MVS
COBOL.
- In 1983, while working at
Pacesetter Systems, Inc., of Dallas, Texas, I
wrote a COBOL compiler preprocessor program to integrate my
BugStalker™ module into
production code. The tables placed in the top of core dumps
generated when production programs failed greatly expedite
debugging and were loved by our customers.
Intelligent Delimited ASCII Data File Merges —
A common problem in moving data between distributed data bases on disconnected
computers is that two or more data sets accumulate before the sending computer
connects with the receiving computer and sends the data. In 1989, I created a
simple, yet novel, method of merging these data files by eliminating the duplicate
header rows in the second and subsequent files.
- The result was
ConcatDE.exe,
a program that merges two or more sets of data in delimited
ASCII export files, eliminating the extra header row. Last
updated in 1990, the program remains in daily use. You can read
about it, and download a copy, at
http://www.wizardwrx.com/FREEBIES/CONC@DE.HTML.
- In 1999, I wrote a Perl script that duplicated the capability of
ConcatDE.exe,
and accepted long file and path names. However, it was never thoroughly tested,
and is now lost. In its place, but on the back burner, is a more ambitious
effort, intended to be implemented in either C++ or, more likely, VB.NET,
which may eventually get done. However since XML has largely replaced
delimited ASCII files in such applications, this project is not a priority.
Windows Shell Debugger — A pair of small
utility programs that I’ve refined over the last four years greatly simplifies
debugging of external program calls in scripts, macros, and other programs.
They are the subject of “Save Time and Aggravation with These Debugging Tools,”
to be published in the Reader to Reader section of the September 2006 issue of
Windows Scripting Solutions, and on line at
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/92854/92854.html.
- In 2002, I created the first version of
WinDummy.exe,
a program to help script writers and other programmers debug
calls to external programs. In 2005, I rewrote
WinDummy.exe
in C, eliminating its dependence on external DLLs.
- Companion program,
WWSimStatus.exe,
permits testing seldom used operating modes of external
programs.
Other Utility Programs
Some of these are used daily by clients, and others are used internally.
Some have been made available to the general public as free software. Please see
http://www.wizardwrx.com/FREEBIES/ for a complete list of
the programs that I give away. Here are a coupe of examples.
- p6repl.exe,
written in 1996, is a small MS-DOS program that replaces one
ASCII character with any other ASCII character. The program was
developed for a Caltex affiliate that needed to replace ASCII
null characters in a file that they generated from our MSDS
software with ASCII space characters. Several others have since
used it, including a colleague in Toronto, Canada.
- P6StrLen.EXE
is a program that I wrote in 1998 for personal use. Hardly a day goes by
that I don’t use it to quickly count characters in a string. We give away
this program; you can get it at
http://www.wizardwrx.com/FREEBIES/P6StrLen.html.
Publications
Although not yet a prolific author of published articles, my work has been
published from time to time.
- “Save Time and Aggravation with
These Debugging Tools,” to be published in the Reader to Reader
section of the September 2006 issue of
Windows Scripting Solutions, and on line at
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/92854/92854.html.
.
- “How To Call Windows API Functions,”
WinBatch Newsletter,
December 2005, on line at
http://techsupt.winbatch.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?techsupt/tsleft.web+Newsletter~Archives+News~2005.12~Dec~-~How~To~Call~Windows~API~Functions.txt#STORY1.
- Beginning in 1996, I quit publishing articles in technical journals to
concentrate on writing software to give away, content for my Web site, and the
VirusWarn mailing list. Beginning in 2005, I resumed writing for
publication, although I continue to write on-line content for this Web site,
including technical articles.
- Please see
http://www.wizardwrx.com/FREEBIES/ for a complete list of
the free programs that I’ve published over the last few years.
- Please see
http://www.wizardwrx.com/cgi-new/buildfaqndxx.pl?TechnicalArticles
for an index of recent technical articles, including “The
Complete Report,” described above. I also wrote the CGI program
that dynamically generates the index.
- The “How the <bleep> Do I?” section of my Web site, at
http://www.wizardwrx.com/cgi-new/buildfaqndxx.pl?HackingForHumans
contains other articles written for the benefit of regular
computer users.
- I am one of three contributors to the well regarded and widely
read VirusWarn mailing list.
This mailing list caters to the
security needs of end users, such as the customers of the firms
represented by the three contributors, list owner
Lee Drake, Brett Rabideau, and me, although we have subscribers
who have serious IT backgrounds, too. Created by Lee in 1999,
and promptly joined, as full partners, by Brett and me, the list
was intended to serve our diverse clients.
By January 2001, we had over 2000 subscribers
all over the world, including employees of two well known Anti-Virus
software companies, and Rotarians around the world who learned about
the list through me. The subscriber list has steadily grown over the
last five years, and currently numbers over 6,000, and its content is
cross posted, with our permission, on Rotary and Soroptimist Web sites
in at least three countries.
The list charter and subscription
instructions are posted on Lee’s Web site at
http://www.viruswarn.com/.
- “Exploring DataEase II: A Book Review,” CC Corner,
ExpertEase, October 1992.
- DE Doc’TR: The DataEase Documenter”,
ExpertEase, September 2002, a software review of a
DataEase programmer’s utility created by my colleague, Shelby
Smith.
- “The Complete Report”, Exploring DataEase III,
1992, Martin Fox. Though written for a book about
DataEase™ programming, the
material in this article is of general interest, and is as
pertinent today as it was in 1992. Consequently, when I began
assembling material for a Web site, it was a natural candidate
for inclusion. You can read the article at
http://www.wizardwrx.com/TechnicalArticles/The_Complete_Report.html.
- I also wrote several technical
articles for the ExpertEase
newsletter during 1991 and 1992.
Professional Affiliations
¨
Member, Dallas ASP.NET User Group,
2006-Present.
¨
Member, DataEase™ user group,
1987-1995, when the group dissolved.
¨
Member, North Texas PC Users Group,
1987-1999.
¨
Member, Institute of Electrical &
Electronics Engineers, 1996-2004.
¨
Member, IEEE Computer Society,
1995--2004.
¨
Member, IEEE Technical
Communications Society, 1996—2004. |
