and in all that time you never bothered to even browse through a current mv basic manual ?
I have to reiterate Charles' WOW ! -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mark Johnson Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 02:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [U2] RE: Named Common I started in MV when Jimmy and Billy were in the White House. I actually worked for Microdata. My app exposure during these last 5 presidents has been many, many, many, many home grown systems, Results, Primac, Infoquest, Screen-Gen, Data/Master, IDS, SHIMS, SAS, ABM, TPH and probably one or more that I can't think of now. I had around 8 clients at 1 time running a VAR supported app using SB+. I was specifically told to keep my hands off of SB+ and only do supplemental report programming on the data records. Thus, I never really learned SB+. Zero Jbase, Zero Open Insight, Point 5 Revelation, Zero Eclipse or other 4GL MV's. And in all this mess the NAMED COMMON had never occurred. If it was in SB+, then it flew past me. I got a bad taste in my mouth for COMMONs as many times they are mis-used. A lot of the code was pre-INCLUDE so each program had its own copy of the COMMON block and it was a pain to synchronize. Plus, many of these programs had the original 32K record limit so they could have a 500 character COMMON line with no spaces, just commas. My eyes got a little blurry. In a contemporary fashion, the only use of COMMON I see now is in TPH with its "COMMON cancel" that just passes one variable around. It's a little frustrating to CALL a TPH sub and forget to put the COMMON in the calling program. As mentioned earlier, If I were to go the COMMON route, I would have one COMMON block in an INCLUDE and register everything there and globally compile as necessary. Perhaps this is the beginning of NAMED COMMON. Perhaps I am in a distinct situation whereby I support around 15 typically legacy clients in all of the flavors and programming. Thus, I don't have the lattitude to goto the beginning and take advantage of implementing a NAMED COMMON for its benefits. Plus, my clients tend to be 60 licenses or less so these 500+ user shops may have greater needs for this kind of optimizing. If this makes me a limited programmer, then so be it. I cannot get ahead of my clients and I cannot rationalize the time/expense to learn new skillsets before my clients need them. I would love to learn SB+, JBase or Open Insight but I am so busy now with standard MV code. Plus, if I were to find the time, I would probably develop skills outside of MV. No flames please. Thanks. Mark Johnson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stevenson, Charles" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 12:09 PM Subject: RE: [U2] RE: Named Common > > On another note, I've yet to come across any apps that use > > the NAMED COMMON concept. Is that a recent addition to the MV > > world or just not that popular. > > > > Thanks in advance. > > Mark Johnson > > wow. > > [Pause. It slowly sinks in.] > > WOW!!! > > Named (aka labelled) common has been common on aps with Pr1me roots for > about two and a half DECADES; e.g., a quarter of a CENTURY; e.g., > longer than a few of our list members have been ALIVE. Since at least > the Carter administration. > > I *think* various other MVs quickly adopted it in the 80s. I ported an > ap from Prime to Ultimate in about 1982 and I don't recall that labelled > common was an issue. > I suppose there are exceptions, but labelled is generally more useful > and safer than unlabelled common. > > That said, it is a new concept to the programmers where I am now, too. > It is a Pick-heritage ap, and it's been an uphill battle to get them to > move past where you are, Mark. Very frustrating. I commend you for > learning new tricks. > > cds > ------- > u2-users mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stevenson, Charles" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 12:09 PM Subject: RE: [U2] RE: Named Common > > On another note, I've yet to come across any apps that use > > the NAMED COMMON concept. Is that a recent addition to the MV > > world or just not that popular. > > > > Thanks in advance. > > Mark Johnson > > wow. > > [Pause. It slowly sinks in.] > > WOW!!! > > Named (aka labelled) common has been common on aps with Pr1me roots for > about two and a half DECADES; e.g., a quarter of a CENTURY; e.g., > longer than a few of our list members have been ALIVE. Since at least > the Carter administration. > > I *think* various other MVs quickly adopted it in the 80s. I ported an > ap from Prime to Ultimate in about 1982 and I don't recall that labelled > common was an issue. > I suppose there are exceptions, but labelled is generally more useful > and safer than unlabelled common. > > That said, it is a new concept to the programmers where I am now, too. > It is a Pick-heritage ap, and it's been an uphill battle to get them to > move past where you are, Mark. Very frustrating. I commend you for > learning new tricks. > > cds > ------- > u2-users mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
