Re: Jbase programming query

[Charlie Noah]

Richard, I, too, have been waiting, both for the documentation and for some common sense. Too short = bad, too long = bad, just right = goooood! I think I knew that programmer. Just couldn't say STORE.ONHAND.QTY or LAST.CHANGE.DATE. Some might say that even these are too long. Chuckling... Charlie Noah Inland Truck Parts Richard Kann wrote: When does that self documentation come out. I have been waiting for 20 years for a copy. :-) Also add programmers that use long variable names. I had one joker who came from the A, B, C world of variables and was so infatuated with Multi-value that he started using variable names such as QUANTITYONHANDFORTHESTORE or LASTDATEITEMWASCHANGED. The re-writing is a good idea. I have done that on some code written by one of my former assistant programmers. But it can be cost prohibitive for clients that we are brought into after the fact and have 50k lines of code for an order entry screen that is fairly complex. It is hard to explain to them why it will cost them a few thousand dollars to re-write the code before I can add one little change to a screen. I speak from experience as I had a client like that. I had to pass on doing any changes for him. Simon Verona wrote: Agreed about the long term benefits of rewriting! Also whilst we're at it - fire any programmer that uses goto, return to, undescriptive variable names or seems incapable of writing comments. Though I did work with a programmer who claimed comments were unnecessary because the code was"self-documenting"!! Strangely enough he also was a big "goto" user.... Simon --------------------------------- Simon Verona Director Dealer Management Services Ltd Sent from my iPhone On 4 Mar 2009, at 17:27, concern shoko <csh...@gmail.com> wrote: At times the best way to debug is to write your own program. Honestly the average time we spend perusing the endless uncommented lines is more than the time we need to write the whole program from scratch....   Food for thought.... On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Richard Kann <h...@comp-ware.net> wrote: The old I learned basic programming in school. Who needs those new fangled large variable names or comments. Try this for size: L=5 GOSUB 9000 A5=VAR L=30 GOSUB 9000 A7=VAR . . .  <some 300 lines later> 9000 INPUT VAR IF LEN(VAR)>L THEN GO 9000 RETURN This was a 15000 line program, the variables were all defined way up at the top (at least 1/2 were, the new fields were left out). There were actually 8 or 9 different subroutine areas for common inputs, prints, etc. I got whiplash trying to read the code. Richard Kann Simon Verona wrote: I think that good programming techniques don’t change.. nice, clear, concise code (with comments) is massively easier to develop, debug and has less bugs inserted with ongoing maintenance and updates...   My nightmare is code like (I was looking at code similar to this earlier in the week)...                   IF X=2&Y=1&Z=3 THEN                      A=A+1                     J<X,Y>=R<Z>                    GO 100              END ELSE                   GO 200              END       This is just a snippet of the kind of code I was debugging – about 1000 lines of code in the same vein, without a single comment!    Such fun!   Simon   <mime-attachment.jpg>   From: jBASE@googlegroups.com [mailto:jBASE@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Richard Kann Sent: 03 March 2009 23:49 To: jBASE@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Jbase programming query   I've seen worse though I agree on the return to's. The other issue is goto statements that jump all over the world rather then using if then's or other more smooth routines. Maybe it's my age, but back in the old days it caused massive frame faulting making the disc run constant. These days I guess it is not as important though still a pain to debug. Simon Verona wrote: I think it's a case of "you're fired " if you use return to !!!   I can only agree having had to historically debut code with lots of  return to's in!   Simon   --------------------------------- Simon Verona Director Dealer Management Services Ltd   Sent from my iPhone   On 3 Mar 2009, at 17:38, Richard Kann <h...@comp-ware.net> wrote:     You said: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever,ever,ever, use RETURN TO. That's ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ad infinitum. But how do you REALLY feel about it Jim?   Richard Kann Comp-Ware Systems, Inc.   Jim Idle wrote:     Dhaya wrote:         Hi     I am using jbase 4.1 release with T24. I have a query regarding  the usage of 'recursive return" statement   in Jbase programming language. I understood we can recursive  return to come out of subroutine to calling program. I have a requirement where when  the recursive return is executed, program control should not come out the subroutine used. It is that is there any way to code such as     PROGRAM.ABORT:       RETURN TO (PROGRAM.ABORT - 1)   Because, i want this recursivee return to be executed 1 level down. Can i use (PROGRAM.ABORT - 1) in jbasic or Is there any alternate way to use.             Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever, ever, ever, ever,ever,ever, use RETURN TO. That's ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,  ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ad infinitum.   For a start you will never debug it. Wanting to do this is a sign  that your design is very wrong.   jBC is a compiled language, therefore the line numbers have no  meaning except in the debugger. There are some compiled languages that  annotate lines but they are compiling broken languages.   The reason that you are wanting to do this is either that you have  used GOTO elsewhere in this program, or that you have called nested subroutines, discovered an error and now want to back out of all the GOSUBs until you can  return from the subroutine. Either way, it  means that you need to redesign your subroutine. Each GOSUB should check an error return and back out accordingly. This type of thing is why more modern languages have exceptions that can cascade back up the chain  and be caught at an appropriate point. However jBC does not have this functionality so you must program accordingly.   Now, personally, I think that the language should have had separate notation for subroutine vs gosub return, but it doesn't, so you are stuck with it. Review your design here - when you have to ask how  to do something like this, it means the program is broken.   Jim                             -- C. Shoko Temenos GLOBUS Developer |Nedbank Africa|South Africa| --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Please read the posting guidelines at: http://groups.google.com/group/jBASE/web/Posting%20Guidelines IMPORTANT: Type T24: at the start of the subject line for questions specific to Globus/T24 To post, send email to jBASE@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe, send email to jbase-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jBASE?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---