If you don't care about maintainable code than should is to strong. If you care about maintainable code then should is too weak.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Robin Vowels <robi...@dodo.com.au> Sent: Friday, September 4, 2020 6:13 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Constant Identifiers On 2020-09-05 05:03, Paul Gilmartin wrote: > On Fri, 4 Sep 2020 17:10:36 +0000, Farley, Peter x23353 wrote: > >> Sounds to me like the documentation writer was a bit confused. Looks >> to me like it should read instead: >> >> If th nnumber 3.1416 is used in more than one place in the program, >> then you *should* declare it as a named constant. No. "Even "should" is too strong. As I wrote earlier. "may" should have been used. >> If it requires specific data or precision attributes at different >> places in the program, then you *must* declare it as a named constant. >> > Yes. The first sentence discusses style and belongs in a Programmers > Guide. > It should just be removed from a Language Reference. > > I haven't Enterprise PL/I. Can anyone supply a compiled > counterexample, > perhaps: > area = (radius**2) * 3.1416; > volume = (radius**3) * 4/3 * 3.1416; > ...? I'll submit an RCF. As for writing formulas, I prefer to follow a well-known formula, thus: volume = 4/3 * 3.14159 * radius**3 However, if I'm interested in efficiency, I'd prefer volume = 4 * 3.14159E0 / 3 * radius**3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
