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Volume 8 No. 5 May 1979

NEXT MEETING

June 7, 1979

LUNCHEON SPEAKER

John Blair
Deloitte, Haskins, and Sells

Golden Carriage
Olympia

Speaker Introduction

A repeat visit from John Blair, Deloitte, Haskins, and Sells.

John's first visit described the investigation underway to evaluate Washington State's use of Data Processing.

With the study complete, John will describe the company's findings and delineate the recommendations.

Your attendance will ensure you are kept informed in the proposed direction of our state data processing.

* * * * * * * * AGENCY NEWS * * * * * * * *

The WDPSC Today

Steve Reyda, Customer Liaison

The Washington Data Processing Service Center started as a traditional batch shop and served the data processing needs of our customers with batch processing services for several years. Responding to changing requirements remote job entry and teleprocessing capabilities were added. Recently, several significant new capabilities were also added enabling WDPSC to continue to respond to changing customer needs.

LEAP (Legislative Evaluation and Accountability Program): This interactive computer system operates under TSO and is used for analysis and graphic display of budget information. The State Legislature uses the system to analyze trends and monitor state spending. All State agencies can now avail themselves of the LEAP system after receiving approval from the LEAP Administrator.

High Speed Page Printer: The primary printing device at WDPSC is an IBM 3800 non-impact printer. It produces extremely high quality printing at speeds as high as 20,040 lines per minute. Vertical spacing can be intermixed on the same page at 6, 8, or 12 lines per inch and horizontal spacing can be intermixed on the same line at 10, 12, or 15 characters per inch. Forms can be generated by a stored program and/or by use of optical projection through a forms overlay as the data is being printed.

APL (A Programming Language): This is a powerful and versatile language for solving both commercial and scientific problems with the use of an interactive terminal. Problems are defined in concise notation using well known mathematical symbols, as well as some that aren't so well known. APL/DI (APL Data Interface) has further simplified use of APL so professional looking reports can easily be produced from regular files.

Distributed Data Processing Service: A DDP service group was organized at WDPSC resulting from a study of the needs brought about by this new direction in data processing. This group assists the customer in many ways including:

- Requirements analysis including cost/benefit.
- Acquisition coordination or assistance.
- General system design.
- Systems development, on the mini or the host.
- Software maintenance for the mini.
- Training in use of distributed hardware and software.
- Facilities planning
- Vendor liaison.

IIS (Interactive Instruction System): This system provides computer assisted instruction as an alternative training method. Using IIS students set their own study pace; starting, stopping or reviewing at will. The students use a video display terminal and interact rec ly with the computer. Courses currently available include:

- Introduction to IIS
- Basic OS JCL
- Introduction to TSO
- Using TSO Effectively

CON Mini-Computer: COM (Computer Output Microfilm) has been offered by XATDPSC for a number of years. This winter, a new feature was added; a frontend mini computer for the CON recorder. This allows microfiche to be developed from a standard print tape which saves both time and money on conversions to CON.

Future Capabilities: Looking ahead, some changes we see coming soon include a migration of our teleprocessing network to System Network Architecture (SNA). This architecture provides more efficient network design and more flexibility in the use of terminals on the network.

Another change, a big one, will be installation of an IBM 3033 multiprocessor between now and January of next year. This basic hardware configuration is projected to give adequate capacity for the next five years of growth. The 3033 processor is IBM's largest and embodies the most advanced technology. It utilizes the same operating system that we have become fam4iar with over the past three and a half years. This means there will be no expensive conversions for our customers and no major training required to gain the benefits of the new computer.

Throughout all the growth and change, the WDPSC has been able to maintain a high level of reliability and at the same time give price reductions for computer processing. We strive to avoid service interruptions while providing a broad spectrum of data process ng services to our customers. New technological opportunities are continually explored and, where feasible, implemented to improve the productivity of Washington State government.

John Gerrits
Service Center #1

Information Services

Jim Anderson; Manager, Computer Services

The Office of Information Services is divided into two sections: Management Information Services and Computer Services.

Management Information Services (MIS) operates as a general clearing house of information center for SF1. Some tasks performed by MIS include:

- Providing statistical information on Washington State public and private schools, such as enrollment data, certificated and classified personnel data, financial data for schools, and bus transportation data.

- Providing mailing labels for internal and external agency requests. A Hewlett Packard 3000-33 is being purchased to maintain mailing files.

- Providing forms management support and control. The type of forms would include survey questionnaires, financial forms, enrollment forms, etc.

Computer Services operates a data processing center to provide agency management with complete computing services. These services include:

- Providing access to service centers at WSU and the Northwest Cooperative Computing Center near Everett.

- Providing systems analysts and computer programming support for the development and maintenance of computer systems.

- Providing complete computer operations support for data entry, staging and destaging of computer jobs, scheduling, and other operational functions as requested by our users.

- Providing assistance and training to users who have remote terminals in their offices.

Computer Services operates a Four-Phase minicomputer, model IV-70, which support RJE functions, both at WSU and near Everett. RJE communication at WSU are with the Amdahl computer, and at the Cooperative Computing Center with Xerox computers. The IV-70 also supports four data entry terminals, one programmer terminal, and one supervisory terminal plus a 600 LPI printer and a 67 megabyte disk system.

The Director of Information Services is the Executive Secretary to the School District Data Processing Advisory Committee (DPAC). The goals of DPAC are:

- Providing for the effective and efficient use of data processing to serve the state education system.

- Providing data communication resources for the state education system which includes school districts and educational service districts.

- Providing for the development of cooperative automated information processing systems.

In its 1976 report to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, a Task Force made fourteen recommendations. The following two recommendations highlight the responsibilities of DPAC:

- Provide for the adoption of common administrative data processing systems for common schools.

- Provide for the creation of regional cooperative data processing centers to provide local school districts with an economic way to collect and process administrative data.-

Today there is presently one formally designated common administrative system in the Kindergarten through 12 (K-12) education system. It accommodates financial reporting at the school district level, at the educational service district level and electronically interfaces with state level reporting requirements.

Five data processing cooperatives have been designated in the cooperative data processing effort: one functional computing center; and four regional data centers.

A functional computing center operates computers and telecommunication equipment in offering support to regional data centers. Functional computing centers are characteristically staffed with computer software specialists, computer analysts and programmers, computer operators, and other technical personnel.

A regional data center interacts with a functional computing center through telecommunications. Regional data centers are equipped with one or more line printers and one or more keyboard terminals. Regional data centers are characteristically staffed with terminal operators and data coordinators.

For the 1977-1979 biennium, the Superintendent of Public Instruction was appropriated $828,225 to establish three cooperative computing centers to meet the financial reporting requirement of 200 school districts. The centers are now operational and serving the payroll, accounts payable, and general ledger requirements of 170 districts. The present rate of district conversion to the system suggests the goal of 200 users will be met by the end of fiscal year 1979. The innovative approach taken to establish new centers was sufficiently economical to permit reversion of $160,000 of the $828,225 appropriation.

Ron Hamblen
Superintendent of Public Instruction

Agency News

We are still waiting for the April article of State Patrol news from Tom Jones. Bobbi Giovannini reports Bob Payne will supply her May article for the June issue.

Articles being solicited are:

June 15

Don Dahl
Sam Crawford
Dick Corbat

July 15

Tom Brown - Washington Library Network (PuIlman)
Don Brown Transportation
Norword Brooks - University of Washington

August 15

Dick Applestone - Employment Security
John Aikin - Evergreen State College

The Editor

1979 Informational System Forum

The impressive title introduces a dynamic cast  of speakers and  vendors.

With a subject like "Distributed Processing" the goal is to provide Washington State Data Processor's with exposure to people who have first-hand experience and vendors with state-of-the-art equipment. The criteria used in speaker selection was:

1. First-hand experience in Distributed Processing

2. A user or consultant -- not a vendor

3. A willingness to speak to Washington State gratis

All vendors (31) known to the State at Washington were contacted to provide hardware presentations and equipment descriptions.

The next page describes the location, dates, format, etc. Plan your attendance now.

Patti Palmer
Department of Transportation

1979 INFORMATIONAL SYSTEM FORUM

SPEAKER SCHEDULE

STRUCTURED MICROSTUFF
by Roland Racko
Consultant, YOURDON Inc.

Joseph and the PROM of Many Colors

Once upon a time there was an engineer named Joseph Schmoe who worked for Tanker Toilet Company. Joe Schmoe had labored long and hard to build the world's first microprocessor-controlled coin-operated toilet (it automatically flushed, advanced the tissue two sheets, sprayed the air with freshener, played a tune with a coordinated light show 1-2p.m. 3-4p.m. displayed on the stall door and then unlatched the door - well, at least you got something or your money).

Like all famous pre-civil War programmers, Joe used assembler - with an inexpensive, paper-tape-based, microprocessor development system. He first read in the paper tape for th edi or constructed his program, read in the paper tape for the assembler, punched a paper tape for his object program, read in the paper tape for the object program, and, standing well back, turned on his program. Each cycle took about 28 hours (especially after correcting syntax errors and typing mistakes and occasional tape-reader failures).

Many flushes and many trials later, Joe got it all right. Vs sense of showmanship told him that he would look best as an engineer if he didn't have to load a paper tape first before he gave the demonstration to his Sales Department. So, Joe made a hard copy of his first version in Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM). That way, he wouldn't have to read the entire program in again by paper tape if somebody wanted to see it - he'd just plug in he PROI . However, since PROMs of the same type have the same part number and look physically identical, Joe realized that his needed a way to distinguish this PROM from all the others in his desk. He put a little dab of green paint on it o remind himself that this was the first "go" version. He then dropped the green-dotted PRO-I into his desk drawer.

Hex day beaming with pride, he announced his achievement to the Sales Staff of Tanker Toilet. The salesmen gathered around and put in their coins, listened to the great resounding flushes, smelled the air freshener, hummed the tune, and pronounced it a success . . . except for one except: Couldn't Joe add a feature that would allow a choice of fragrance? The toilet might be installed in either a men's lounge or a ladies' lounge. Different fragrances would appeal to each. Nobody was quite sure why this hadn't been thought of before, but all agreed that it was indeed a needed feature. And, added the sales-types, couldn't this all be done by The Monthly Sales Kick-off Meeting tomorrow noon?

Joe said that of course it could be done. He was pretty certain he could comply with this time-frame since he had just figured out in his head what object code patch would do it. He knew he could not rework the code at the ass bl r level because, with all that paper-tape reading, it would take 28 hours for one go-round. But since The Monthly Sales Tick-off Meeting was less than 28 hours away, he would have to patch at the object code level to do the fix in time at all. Joe scurried away, intent upon making an object code patch from the development system console switch-panel. Boy, it was great. Just like the bad old days of the early-1960's machines. Fingers dancing over the console switches hex digits flying about, lights flashing, bits bopping around memory . . Visions of saving the day for the sales people danced in Joe's head.

Bleary-eyed and fingers numb, our hero emerged from his office at 4 a.m. with a version that would produce one of two fragrances. Quickly, he blew a PROM of the new version. That decidedly was faster than punching a tape. He boldly painted the top of this PROM with one pink dot and one blue dot (to remind him of the female/male option), put it in his drawer, and went home for some well-deserved rest.

The salesmen were very pleased - very, very pleased . . . with one small "but." The morning's Market Research Report had just revealed that different parts of the country like to listen to different kinds of music: Couldn't the toilet be programmed so that it gave a trumpet fanfare, for example, or a small rock combo, or a balalaika quartet, and so on? Couldn't that be incorporated along with the two fragrance options in time for the Division Vice President's visit tomorrow? Well, naturally, Joe said yes. He had left enough spaces in the tune vector array. so that at least one more song could be added with no change at all, and the balalaika quartet mod would only require a small, simple, object code patch. When he made that PROM, he thought to himself, he should use colored dots having the colors of the state flag of Russia.

The Vice President loved it. Probably he is of Russian ancestry. But he made one interesting observation: the multiple-exit case. If an installation had more than one stall and on some occasion more than two people left their stalls simultaneously, some of the flushes might drown out some of the tunes. Couldn't Joe work up a fix for multiple stalls that would synchronize the flushing and the tune playing? And, couldn't Joe have this ready by tomorrow when the President would be coming by to check the progress of things?

Joe was beginning to get a trifle concerned. This was a major change. It was one thing to make a change to an isolated clump of code in the program, but this was something else entirely. A whole new approach to great gobs of code would be required in order to insure that separate stalls could be synched together. That would mean that the source code would look altogether new for some parts of the program. If he made an object code patch rather than rework the assemble version, the two would be so far out of line that the assembler would no longer provide even a rough guide to what was going on. However, our hero knew that if he worked like blazes till seven in the morning, he could make an object code patch that would set up the address jump table, reorder the interrupt priorities, resequence the I/O multiplexing, and all that. Whereas, it would be totally impossible to rework it by 7 a.m. using paper-tape -based assembler. His anxiety increased as he contemplated what he would do if he had to make yet another change to the patched patch. Besides, he thought, What would Ed Yourdon say to all of this? Oh, well, no time to worry now; I'll just put red and white racing stripes on this PROM to remind me of how fast I had to work to get this patch in place.

Needless to say, President Tidwe1l Khan Tanker Himself loved it. "Wel1, Joe, it's great," said the President. "I don't know anything about programming, but could you put in one tiny little feature that will cause the stall to reject coins if the stall is out of tissue?" Everybody present agreed that this was a most sensible feature. Then, bolstered by the support he felt around him, the President demanded, "Have that ready by tonight's meeting of the Board of Directors," Joe nodded, swallowed hard, and mentally painted that PROM copper and silver colored. He then left hurriedly to do some fast patchwork quilting.

The Board was enthralled. Of course, they wanted an Export Version that would accept foreign coins and make change. The Board wanted the option put in place before the morning when the Wall Street Investment Bankers were coming by . . . When Joe made that PROM he had no more paints, and since somehow it seemed appropriate, he pricked his finger with the point of his pocket knife and let a few drops of blood fall on this PROM to distinguish it from all others.

But You PROMised Me

At the beginning of the project, Joe's manager had assured him that there would be ample time for documentation and cleaning up of code. But, as you might have expected, Joe never did get the chance to clean up the source code listing. The investment bankers said that all six versions were viable products. They said that all six should be produced, but that they would back production only if it began immediately. That would give Tanker Toilet a jump on the competition

No time to go back and pretty up code. After all, they reasoned, Joe has working versions in all those colored PROMs; we'll just copy those. So PROMs were copied, and interestingly, Joe's original color code was used to identify which PROM belonged to what features.

Creeping Elegance

We have in this tale of Joseph two phenomena - Creeping Elegance and Patchwork Quilting. Creeping Elegance has several characteristics that are evident in our story: The first deals with increments. Each increment of an additional feature will appear eminently necessary. Each increment will be something nobody will have thought of before, but everyone will wonder how such an obvious thing could have been overlooked. For every proposed increment, the responsible software engineer characteristically will be on the defensive (having gotten some bad press on the last project), and will go out of his way to accept change. Again characteristically, the engineer will be tempted to behave like Superman in order to deliver increments of change in record times Furthermore, the increments themselves will have a required delivery time that is inversely proportional to the requester's position in the company hierarchy. An additional characteristic is that some people will be present who have enormous policital clout; their improvement must be accepted - without regard to its reasonableness. Finally, someone is bound to say, "Well, I don't know anything about programming but . .

Creeping Elegance cannot be legislated out of existence. I'd go so far as to argue that it is a useful phenomena, for it provides to the developers feedback about the saleability or usefulness of their product. Additionally, there usually are mistakes in the user's conception of what he wants, and this kind of incremental development gives him insight into what's really needed.

Nevertheless, Creeping Elegance must not get out of hand. The best ways mast be found to track it more or less gracefully. One way to do this is to use Structured Design principles - so as to provide code that is conceptually easy to change. Still, the physical code cannot be easily changed if paper-tape-type (or otherwise slow or batch- oriented) development systems are utilized. You should know by now that If you say the word change at anything above a whisper, most software engineers immediately envision a console and an object code patch, as did our hero. That tendency cannot be made to go away simply by requiring "adequate documentation" or some such standard. One company official remarked to me that somehow, even with stringent documentation formats necessary for field repair, one out of three object code patches never gets written up. If pressure to produce gets high enough, an engineer will patch object code. Patched object code, the colored PROMs, configuration-control problems, documentation problems, field repair problems, and so on, only go away if it is more convenient and/or faster to reassemble than it is to patch object code. It's that simple.

Managers and engineers should be alert to the fact that Creeping Elegance can turn into Galloping Elegance, and that Galloping Elegance invariably leads to trouble. Galloping Elegance can be spotted easily, however: A sure-fire signal appears if any of the microprocessor's resources have been used beyond about 70 percent of capacity. For example, if on your last several projects, the answer to the question, How do you tell when a project is completed? is, A project is done when we run out of memory, then Galloping Elegance has occurred. If you start exceeding 70 percent utilization of memory, cycles, I/O transfer rate, and so forth, you are in the danger zone - and further expansion will lead to teeth-gnashing as you try to shoehorn more and more features into fewer and fewer resources. Further, you'll normally need some buffer on any resource to absorb the Totally Unexpected Stuff that somehow crops up either before or after delivery. A buffer of 30 percent is prudent.

There are no tricks in dealing with Galloping Elegance. You will, of course, benefit from fast turnaround, but you might also demand the right to thoroughly design and complete any given increment before you accept the target for the next. (Why? Because it is ever so much harder to make more than one transform to a system at a time.) A second approach might be to admit sooner that you are underconfigured. Nobody likes to do that, but admitting you were underconfigured after you deliver a product is so much more embarrassing. In any case, the basic problems of Creeping Elegance and Patchwork-Quilted PROMs both can be eliminated - or at the worst alleviated by using FAST development systems that have quick turnaround. Pre-Civil War approaches to development tools will cause more problems than they will solve.

Contributed by Twila Perry
General Administration

Serial, Part One

GERIATRICS

Galen Scbmidtke

A brilliant morning billowed out of the spring sky and across the Cascade Mountains to twinge the squinting eyes of Seattle. It was one of those rare, bright mornings when the rising sun silhouetted the huge Douglas firs along the distant ridgetops, outlining each tree so that it was clearly visible in the Queen City eighty kilometers away. This precious morning erased in an instant the memory of ten chill, drizzly, leaden-gray days that had gone before. Birds, unseen for many months, sang their joyous songs to unfolding daffodils, lilacs, and rhododendrons. The small bodies of bees, already marching forth on their constant foraging, were crisply replicated in tiny shadows cast on lawns and walkways. A clean warm breeze, which seemed to emanate from the still snow-covered Olympic Mountains to the west, glided in over Puget Sound, carrying the fragrances of salt water and evergreen forests beyond. It was a day that begged to be lived to its fullest, and Violet Peters was determined to do so.

Violet Peters, age 72, lived with her friends in the Senior Citizens Social Center in the long since aging Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Violet was set on taking a walk and enjoying the day, but her friends were against it. It would only be a short walk: out the gates of the Center; south down the street two blocks to the elementary school; two streets to the west; four more blocks north to the right; two intersections east; and two blocks back to her starting point. No, her friends argued, she must not go: there were plenty of birds and flowers within the grounds of the Center, and pretty walkways, and comfortable places to sit. But Violet was not and never had been a follower, and even if she must live as a resident of the hotel-like seniors' home, she would still delight in her individual pleasures. Violet slipped on a hand-crocheted sweater and, with a last rejected offer to the others to join her, made her way out the front door of the Senior Citizens Social Center. She walked with a still firm step toward the sturdy iron gate set in the high concrete wall- -surmounted with broken glass an electrified wire--which separated the grounds from the adjoining neighborhood. Upon arriving at the gate, she was obliged once more to argue her case with the heavily armed guard. Yes, she said, she knew perfectly well what she was about. She was about to revel in the springtime.

The heavy iron doors to the portal clanged shut behind a deeply inhaling Violet Peters whose nostrils drank in the smells of spring. She set off in almost jaunty steps toward the elementary school. When she drew even with the schoolgrounds, she saw that it must be the morning recess, since forty or so children--probably the whole student body--were out on the playground pursuing their various frolics. Violet could not help stopping at the two meter hi gh wire mesh fence and looking in at the youngsters. It had been so long since she'd seen any and seldom so many together. She knew almost immediately that her stopping had been a mistake, a very bad error. One of the kids had spotted her and was pointing her out to the other students. Should she go back? It was just over a block back to the Center. No, she'd not have her pleasure spoiled. Violet strode forward at almost a jog, hoping to turn the corner and skirt the school yard before the children reached the fence.

Social scientists had argued among themselves in their journals for many years about the probable nature of a zero growth society. They knew that such an era was coming, and must come, what with a headlong rush toward zero population growth, conservation of natural resources, and preservation of the ecology. What they visualized was an economy in which the gross national product would settle down at some constant level, along with a comparable stabilization of the population. Their equilibrium would be maintained through some as-then-unknown political, social, and economic forces which would act to equitably distribute the more or less constant economic output among the people. The fact that the material wealth of the nation might no longer increase--or advance only with productivity increases--would be fully offset by a steady growth in the "quality of life". There would be more leisure time, hours to romp in those forests saved by ecologists, days to savor the cultural pleasures of rejuvenated cities in this idyllic world they envisioned.

Violet's aged legs failed to carry her quickly enough to avoid the children. A boy, the ten year old who had first pointed her out to the others, scooped up a handful of mud left by the previous spring rains and slung it through the wire fence. "Oldy, oldy, oldy rotten moldy," the children chanted, moving down the inside of the fence in parallel with Violet, pelting the old woman with mud, dirt clods, and handfuls of pebbles. "Dummy oldy. They're going to get you. Nyah, nyah!' A clump of dirt hit the aging female in the side of the face, knocking her glasses to a shattering collision with the sidewalk, She didn't pause to retrieve them. Rounding the corner she scurried the remaining fifty meters which put her past the border of the playground. A last, hard clod struck her in the back of the head leaving a red rivulet running from her crown down through her gray-white hair. Panting, the senior citizen sat down on the curb, gasping for breath, now sobbing. Yes, the folks at the Center had been right. She shouldn't have come out on the streets.

Association Minutes - May 3, 1979

Chairman Paul Newman called the meeting to order at 12:15. There were 24 members in attendance. In Patti's absence, Paul introduced the guest speaker, Mr. Terry Wold, Acting Executive Director of the DPA. Terry reviewed the presentation he gave recently to agency directors on the role of data processing. The major topics covered during the day-long seminar were:

* what computers are,
* what they can and can't do,
* trends in computer development (speed, costs, size, etc.),
* pitfalls in the uses of computers,
* the need for comprehensive agency planning in order to make effective use of data processing resources.

Terry's presentation was interesting and informative and gave all of us a better understanding of the information which he had previously presented to agency management.

Following Terry's talk, Paul opened the business meeting. John Aikin reported that the treasury now contains p347.94.

Galen Schmidtke gave a brief report of the preceding day's DPA meeting. Some of the major events were:

*the status of agency security plans was reviewed, *discussion of the WDPSC audit, *WSP and UW were granted approval for new acquisitions.

Following the DPA report there was discussion of how to pay for the cost of printing future issues of the newsletter. The DPA no longer feels that it can pay the cost. The general consensus was that we should either seek a less expensive source of printing than found thus far or seriously consider an increase in the dues for the coming biennium to cover the approximately $30/issue cost.

There were no significant committee reports under Old Business. Under New Business, Julie needs a review of the CSA-I oral questions. Twila Perry and Paul Newman indicated that their agencies would send someone. Others are encouraged to contact Julie at DOP.

Bobbi Giovannini reported on nominations for the next year's officers, which were accepted. Ballots will be distributed May 15 to all members who returned the mailing list request by that date. The nominations are:

Chairperson: Sam Crawford and Mike Brackett
Secretary/Treasurer: Patti Palmer and Dick Nelson
Program Coordinator: Mary Jo Lavin and John Gerritts
Executive Committee: Larry Seaburg, Bill Fisher, and Frankie Schlender

Paul adjourned the meeting at 1:30.