Guess, one reason why many people will do their definitions - including their
subrotuines and functions - at the beginning, then do the main body of the app;
it all comes from old. At least, for the ones of us, who is coming in from the
old days, we are all used to things like Pascal (and I do believe it was the
same thing in C). In those programming languages, you were not allowed to do
anything, unless you first had the Variables, Procedures and functions, already
defined. That meant - since the encoder would process the program (app)
consequtively, starting out with line 1, and finishing with the last line - you
would have no other choice but to place your main body at the bottom. The
transformation into scripting, is a bit of a jump over for old-timers like me
and many others. Specially so, when comes to reading other peoples app code.
You read, and all the sudden meet up with an instruction, that looks intesting
and nice. Right away, you think this is a built-in feature of the scripting
language, and so implement the instruction in your own code. Then try to run
your newly constructed app, and are left with an error thrown at you, and
pretty soon the waiste basket full of newly pulled hair - since you do¨n't see
why that error got thrown at you. Finally, you decide to read the rest of the
1000 lines from the original script that you downloaded, and at line 995, you
find the reason for being bald-headed: This was an instruction, pointing to a
subroutine of some kind, that the author has put the code of, at the very end
of his script. I have been playing around with scripting in VBS for a couple of
years now, and still find it confusing to see main bodies at the top - or even
somewhere hidden in between all kinds of subs, functions and variable
definitions. After something like two decades of Pascal programming, it all
looks to me, as if you were going to do a job - like building a house - and you
put the hose on the plot first, then brought out your toolbox.
Another practice, that I don't find very convenient when reading through other
peoples code, is the tendency of scattering their variable definitions (dim
statments) all over the place. Again, looks like a carpenter, who just left his
hammer, saw, screw-driver, drill - all over the plac - simply dropping it where
he found it convenient. Then atain, when in college, studying for my electronic
edducation, we were always told to first sit down and figure the problem find a
solution, make up our minds on what to do, where, when and how to do it. This
meant, to bring the tools we needed. Guess this made the basis for our computer
skills, as in the method of programming described above (taken from Pascal),
you'd have to define - or as if it was, bring your tools - at the beginning of
the code.
Again, think of a person who wants to bake a cake. She would typically go to
her cuppard and fridge, making sure she had what the reipe told was neeeded for
ingrediences, before she would even dream of getting started with the baking
process itself. Or, are you used to start cooking, all the sudden realizing
that you are out of eggs, then run to the store and pick up eggs (or let's say
put ind an instruction in your code - Dim EGGS). Then coming back to your
cooking, you continue with the job, only to realize you now are left with the
lack of a qurter of milk. S, you drop down to the store and pick it up -. or
in your code Sub Quarter of milk() ... End Sub 'Quarter of milk.
For people who got started out directly in modern scripting, all of this
chatter of mine, might seem useless. But at least, that is where old-timers
like me are coming from. I am not going to claim that the one way of handling
things are to be more correct over the other. Simply just letting people know,
why some people tend to put the main body here, others will drop it there. Good
thing Windows doesn't mind! Smile. After all, one practice that would have been
helpful, but which seems to often being left behind, is the clearly marking of
where your different parts are placed in the code. Good commenting habits, I
guess, is the keywords here. Again, here you will sometimes see that there is a
couple of practices. Some people like to do the job first - writing ther line
of code -and then explain what they have just accomplished, by dropping a
comment in their app code. Others, like myself, find it more useful, first to
tell the reader WHAT you are going to do - then go ahead and do it. Like:
'We now will take an user input of the phone number:
PNumber = Input "Phone number please? "
Again, none of the methods are more correct than the other. And different app
authors will cling to the one or the other. But, as people start to read the
different app codes from others, they might wonder why all this differences in
practice - and does it matter what way I personally handle the job. In things
like VBS, and in the cases here discussed, it doesn't matter for the
performance of the app. But it might impact the readability of the code, mainly
for yourself. So, at the end, I think it will stand as this: Find the practice
that you yourself are familiar with, then go ahead. Only, keep in mind that
others might want to read your app, or you yourself want to modify it at a
later time. That's why, it is always good to make sure, that it stands out
clearly what you have done. A small 'log-file', that goes with your app, is of
course a pretty good idea. Yet, see how many does keep such a logfile? Smile!
----- Original Message -----
From: Chip Orange
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 3:33 AM
Subject: RE: VBScript NotePad App and Loading To App Central
Very nice Rick; thanks, and I hope everyone in the class will download the
.zip file attached to Rick's message. he's not only provided his solution, but
he's provided a "walk through" document, a kind of log of his process for
developing this app and debugging and testing it as he put the two parts
together, to make sure everything was working ok.
Rick, I've decided this is useful enough to me that I'm going to keep mine
running, but I don't feel like taking on the support of another app just now.
so, if you'd like to do it, feel free to finish it off and upload it to app
central; I think it's useful and belongs in the program enhancements. If you
don't feel like doing it though, maybe let the list know in case someone else
would like to take it on?
One thing I'd like to mention to the beginning students: in my examples, I've
always placed the code of the main body of any app at the start of the .vbs
file. You'll find Rick has placed his down into the .vbs file (a not uncommon
practice), marked with a comment.
this is all the same to Window-eyes, no matter where it's placed, it takes
all the statements which are not in a subroutine or function, and groups them
together and executes them as the main body; just something I thought I should
mention now, as I don't ever recall mentioning this point earlier, and someone
may have thought there was no main body code.
Chip
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: RicksPlace [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 4:51 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: VBScript NotePad App and Loading To App Central
Hi Chip: Here is the Script files for the NotePad script we were working
on in class.
It is unfinished since I did not want to upload it to App Central unless this
is the version that would be a good Production Fit with anything else up there
for NotePad.
Also, since I have not uploaded it I don't have a real ID, ScriptNamed
Website and whatever else goes along with uploading a script properly. That
said, this is getting close and I will check out any docs on uploading scripts.
I to not want to add to the bloat that is happening with the available
scripts by putting up some test script so will wait until I hear from you here
or in class.
Anyway, it's done for now so it is what it is.
Let me know if you are going to put a real NotePad script up or if you are
going to modify an existing script.
Rick USA
