Re: Pros & Cons

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim-Bar <timbar@blazenet.net>
To: midrange-l@midrange.com <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Date: Monday, October 26, 1998 3:05 PM
Subject: Pros & Cons


>Here's one to toss around -
>
>When creating a display file for a file maintenance program, is it
>better to reference the physical file fields or create fields with
>different names? If you use different screen field names you have to
>move the file fields into those fields to display on the screen and then
>move the screen fields back into the file fields before updating the
>record format. This seems like a lot of extra work. Is there any reason
>to do it this way?
>

Darlene

I was taught (taught=what I saw others do), that it is better to have unique
fields
on the display, for various reasons.  As I think about the reasons now, they
all can
be resolved by proper program design.
 However, we have found some problems with naming a date field the same on
the screen as the database file.  We are using the "windowing technique" to
keep
the dates entered on the screens as MMDDYY, but the files are now YYYYMMDD.
We are having to give the screen fields new names, and try to trace
backwards if
the program is referring to the screen field or the database field. Of
course we have
some programs with several screens and are updating the same date field on
multiple screens.

But again, if these programs were properly designed (I.e. independent
routines for
each screen and its editing and updating) the "windowing" would be fine.

My feeling is that you should have unique field names on the screen for
clarity sake.
More work up front, easier to maintain 3 months later.

Gerald Magnuson
Knapheide Manufacturing Company

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