> From: David A. Green > I've always commented my program at the beginning, but > some programs have many changes and when we have 300+ > lines of comments it gets a little tedious to deal > with embedded in the source code. > > I'm think of placing them in an external file and then > doing a $INSERT in the source code in order to tie > them together. > > How do you handle the long comments?
I've often thought of this as being a problem with both the language and the editors that we commonly use. Typical MV editors show all code. There is no provision for folding content or "outlining". For example, in C# we can do this: #region Initialization // lots of comment lines here // variable definitions, code, etc #endregion In Visual Studio that collapses to a single line: + Initialization We can click the plus sign to open it up and see the entire section. Other editors support this feature for different languages. Code can be nested: #region Main Section #region Define Variables // definitions here #endregion vars #region Major Function 1 // code here #endregion functions #endregion main Again, that collapses to something like this: #region Main Section + Define Variables + Major Function 1 + Major Function 2 #endregion main Or collapses entirely to: + Main Section But with MV BASIC the language doesn't support this unless we use a pre-processor, and even then we don't have editors that recognize the constructs. The best we can do is to use something like this: *!+ This starts a region * code here *!- This ends the region But then we need an editor to support it. And that brings me to... <a minor rant> I was writing a new MV Editor to support this and many other features highly desirable to MV developers. But as with many projects where people would inevitably demand a free solution I decided to put this project on the shelf indefinitely. It's just not worth it to try to improve our lot here. Since people are so fond of open source freeware I'll suggest that the source code is available for people to enhance to recognize code as defined above. That's the spirit of open source - we're supposed to give as much as take. If no one wants to enhance one of the fine FOSS utilities out there, then it seems we'll simply never have the functionality. People all too often confuse free=liberty with free=beer. They want the software to be free-of-charge but we rarely see people publishing MV-specific enhancements to open source code as a contribution to the community. It's this condition that causes us to continually lose sites to the mainstream world as people wonder why our development practices are so primitive. C'est la vie. </> Tony Gravagno Nebula Research and Development TG@ remove.pleaseNebula-RnD.com _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
