[kwlug-disc] Version Description Document (VDD)

[John Johnson]

Sending to KWLUG list & KWARTZLAB list

I saw the following in a tech newsletter:

Do you control releases using a Version Description Document? There's a 
good write-up about these in the deceased and very-missed Dr. Dobb's 
Journal here 
<http://www.drdobbs.com/implementing-a-version-description-docum/184415521>, 
and a sample here <http://sce.uhcl.edu/helm/MS_2167/vdd_80013A.doc>.

My spin. A few times in my career I have been asked to revive long 
dormant embedded systems firmware development efforts.

Embedded systems are notorious for their long life spans, often spanning 
decades - often outlasting the availability of the parts used to build 
the products.

People at one organization asked for a Version Description Document 
(VDD) - and I had to look this up.

When I was first asked for the VDD the purpose was to document the 
requirements to replicate a development environment required to be able 
reproduce the work product.
This would include listing the tools (IDE, Compiler, Linker), and 
libraries as well as versions thereof.
Also listed would be the configuration/make files and, of course, the 
source code and the versions thereof.
A description of the target target hardware would be relevant for 
embedded systems (2,3), and could be important in other areas (1).

(1) I once was called into troubleshoot a client/server network problem 
(circa 1995). The code would run on an NT server running a single core 
CPU but had intermittent problems with an early dual core CPU. I 
suspected timing / race conditions were hard coded in the software and 
these failed with the dual core CPU in the NT server.

(2) One project (circa 1995) was started in the 1970s on an Apple II PC 
(6502 uC) and the task was to port the code to a current (1995) PC w/P1 
CPU under Windows. Trying to find the development tools, documents and 
source code for the Apple II was a challenge.

(3) I am making this up as I go. Consider a product developed around a 
vintage 8051 uC (6 kHz CPU) see below. Then, because the uC has been 
discontinued we asked to go a new CPU with a 30 MHz clock and which 
decodes and executes instructions in 1 clock cycle as opposed to the 
original 12 clock cycles.
Where to start. Being able to reproduce the original executable code 
used in - say 1985 - would be a good starting point.

https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/2035

https://jaycarlson.net/2017/06/27/blinking-an-led-with-an-original-intel-8051/

Regards
JohnJ

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