Let me first say that I am in favor of a mechanism to globally specify the various items that have been proposed for ::options. But I am not clear on why this needs to be a new directive when the language and standard provide for the OPTIONS keyword. Any help would be appreciated :-)
David Ashley wrote: > Mark Miesfeld wrote: > >>On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 5:42 AM, Rick McGuire <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> >>>I'm starting to come around to the position that the default digits >>>setting should be 9 (not completely convinced yet, but close). >>> >>> >> >>I'm not entirely convinced either. But, if you and Mike reach a >>consensus on it, then I'm content to go with that. Personally, I >>don't buy the readability argument. >> >> >> >>>However, I think that if this is done, then there are some additional >>>things that need to be added. One is a ::options directive to allow >>>these things to be tailored on a source file basis. >>> >>> >> >>The ::options directive is in and by itself a great idea. However, if >>the decision is to go with a default of 9 digits for the 64-bit build, >>then I think it is a must. >> >>I gotta run now, I'll thing about a keyword that means "use the same >>as the internal built-in setting". >> >>-- >>Mark Miesfeld >> >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), March 24-25, 2009, San Francisco, CA >>-OSBC tackles the biggest issue in open source: Open Sourcing the Enterprise >>-Strategies to boost innovation and cut costs with open source participation >>-Receive a $600 discount off the registration fee with the source code: SFAD >>http://p.sf.net/sfu/XcvMzF8H >>_______________________________________________ >>Oorexx-devel mailing list >>[email protected] >>https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/oorexx-devel >> >> >> > I can live with an OPTIONS directive. > > And I have NEVER agreed with the readability argument. My programs have > way too many instances where the readability limit places far too many > limitations on my math calculations. I much prefer precise results over > the surprise factor of loosing digits unexpectedly. Therefore I am > constantly placing a NUMERIC DIGITS 14 at various places in my programs. > > And I would like to make one last point about the readability > philosophy. If you examine any Rexx program and count the number of > numeric objects that are used or generated in the program, you will > typically find that 90% or more of those objects never get displayed > except during the debugging cycle of the program. And those that do get > displayed to the user are almost always formatted in some way. In fact, > I would say that most users will not accept a program that does not > format numbers for readability. Therefore, the readability argument just > does not hold water in most circumstances as an argument for limiting > the number of digits. It is strictly a easy limit to help the > programmer, but it turns out to be an impediment to producing precise > calculations for production programs. > > As a systems administrator I am always writing Rexx programs to > calculate disk usage, file size, memory capacity, and other such large > value objects. I constantly have to think about the 9 digit limit on my > calculations in such programs. The default of 18 digits in the 64-bit > environment was going to be a real help to me and I was not happy about > reverting it to 9. At least with the OPTIONS directive I can easily > globalize a new setting. > > David Ashley > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), March 24-25, 2009, San Francisco, CA > -OSBC tackles the biggest issue in open source: Open Sourcing the Enterprise > -Strategies to boost innovation and cut costs with open source participation > -Receive a $600 discount off the registration fee with the source code: SFAD > http://p.sf.net/sfu/XcvMzF8H > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Oorexx-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/oorexx-devel -- Gil Barmwater ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), March 24-25, 2009, San Francisco, CA -OSBC tackles the biggest issue in open source: Open Sourcing the Enterprise -Strategies to boost innovation and cut costs with open source participation -Receive a $600 discount off the registration fee with the source code: SFAD http://p.sf.net/sfu/XcvMzF8H _______________________________________________ Oorexx-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/oorexx-devel
