The ease of installation and upgrade is a major factor in the value of any form of software solution. Many useful products are far too cumbersome to install, specially when it comes to client-server versions where client software must be installed on several workstations. Upgrading an existing licence is often difficult as well. And it gets even worse when we are dealing with products that can run on several platforms, and support various optional add-ons.

In order to address these problems, RainCode is delivered in a simple and efficient way:

• It can be installed in less than 10 minutes
• The latest version is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to all registered customers
• A single distribution covers all platforms
• The latest corrections and improvements are available in this distribution with a time lag of a few hours
• Automated test procedures prevents spurious bugs from appearing despite the very short time to delivery.

Portability

This entire process of fast delivery of new versions through electronic distribution would be badly hampered if we had to produce binaries for a large number of different platforms.

Hence, we deliver RainCode in two forms:

• a binary version for Windows (XP, Me, 2003, etc.)
• a shrouded C source version, which is obfuscated up to a point where it is barely readable, but that can be compiled on all Linux or Unix platforms flawlessly.

A separate MVS (z/OS) version is also available in binary form. Despite great differences between this platform and Windows or Unix, it provides the same functionality, up to a point where RainCode scripts can be used as is on all supported platforms.

Regression testing

We try to reduce the time to delivery for updates and bug corrections. On the other hand, we must also ensure that this does not have a negative effect on the quality of the product. We have set up an automated regression test, made of hundreds of different source files that RainCode must analyse successfully before a new version can be issued.

The sample we use for regression testing has been made to reflect as many possible different situations as possible. Everytime a new feature is added to RainCode, the regression test sample is updated accordingly.