> For a while after IBM introduced VM in the early '70s, some > people advocated "straight through" coding which kind of tied > into Structured Programming. The idea was to start the > program on page 1 of the listing and continue straight > through to the last page without going backward or jumping ahead. > > This was supposed to make it easier to follow the logic and > cut down on OS Page Faults. Some of the maintenance was > mitigated by the use of Macros and Includes that inserted the > same code over and over. The macros could perform string > substitution if it was needed. > > A lot of very strange things happened during those years in > an attempt to advance the state of the art. What is really > interesting is that a lot of the stuff from that period is > being trotted out again under different names: XML, Pentium > architecture, DLLs, Common runtime, etc. Unfortunately a lot > of the bad stuff keeps coming back. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
The idea of reusable code has been around forever (functions, SVC calls, macros, etc), it's the implementation and our propensity for "out with the old, in with the new" that keeps us churning out the same things in different ways. I've often thought that had we just stayed with assembler and continued building macros and function libraries around it, we wouldn't need any of the other languages that are popular today because that language would have given us all the constructs, OOP included, without all the expense of so many reinventions. But it was as it was, and we're more likely to see more "new waves" of technology then a settling down to basics. You may be aware that the 0S390 world continues to accommodate 30+ year old code but also C++ http://www.sysprog.net/cplus.html From the standpoint of durability and continuity, that's the show to keep an eye on. It even runs Linux. But the barrier to entry is very high, and that's why some of are still in PC-land. We do have an good language with OOP VFP, though, so long as MS doesn't do things to hurt us we should be good for 10+ more years. By that time, it's anyone's guess what we'll see on the horizon. On the reusability issue, I think a good part of the problem there is lack of adequate documentation. I'll be the first to admit that I've got many functions already written that could be better leveraged if only they were better documented. But we tend to write code, not documentation, as if "documentation is for wussies". We see companies counting lines of code, but there are no metrics that count lines of code not written due to good documentation. Bill > HALinNY _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
