Re: Compile error when using field in a subfield data structure -- RPG400-L

Jderham2@xxxxxx wrote:

No, that's not true. We like hammers very much and have good aim. What we don't like are nail gunners with no aim al all. We good spend days talking about coding style which does not seems to be a subject that is given any time in today's education system. But then neither are the rule of grammar or just good solid phrasing.

Free Form has a place but it is far from being the end of end all's. Logic and concise code planning is still king of the hill and I don't think Free Form adds one iota to that problem.

Jack: A couple of months ago, we were asked by management to find some quantitative reasons for using free-form. Since free-form coding is the norm in this business and the advantages are patently obvious to practically everyone who designs and uses programming languages (at least in the vast programming world outside of RPG), it turned out to be a harder task than expected.

But I did find one publically available study that tried to measure the effects of indenting source code, at <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=358437&dl=ACM&coll=portal>. In the study, the authors conclude: "In summary, we conclude that some indentation does aid program comprehension. From our results, we suggest that the optimal level of indentation is 2-4 spaces. No indentation produced significantly lower mean scores and the subjects found working with this program difficult. We conclude that in a large program, no indentation would be a real hindrance and very difficult to use. The same is true for overly indented programs."

I can personally attest to that, working regularly with both properly indented C code and with traditional "straight-line" RPG code. There's no question at all which is easier to work with.

I also refer you to the book "The Elements of Programming Style", by Kernighan and Plauger. The first edition (published I believe in 1974) was pretty much required reading when I was in school in the late 1970's, and the second edition (1982) is still in print. (How many other books can you name in this industry that have that longevity?) At the time, the book was nick-named "The Old Testament". For a summary of the main points of the book, visit <http://users.erols.com/blilly/programming/The_Elements_of_Programming_Style.html>. Nothing here is new - most of these principles were taught to computer science students as much as 30 years ago! But for RPG programmers, many points can only be practised using recent versions of RPG.

Cheers! Hans

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