RE: Assembly programmers do it a byte at a time

I think that static storage is probably the root of the subroutine vs.
procedure "conflict."  A small program, a simple report or something
that does one thing, is going to have mostly global variables.  You can
create service programs or modules to hide globals from the main
program, but there's always the question of when do you see the benefit.
There's a critical mass where the extra effort to hide data is worth it.
The trick is determining what it is. 

I prefer using procedures.  I was trained in Pascal and C.  Global
variables were grounds for a slap on the hand unless they were needed
for a type definition or something else the entire program needed. I was
delighted to see procedures and automatic variables added to RPG.  It's
made my life easier and increased my job security--job security through
obscurity.  <g>

In 1999 or so I did a little bit of subcontracting for a friend of mine
and one of the programs used procedures to do date arithmetic.  The
procedures converted numeric dates to date dates and returned the
result.  Some time after the program was installed the Y2K consultants
came to my friend asking "What the @#$@$ is this?"     

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alan Campin
> Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 11:24 AM
> To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: Assembly programmers do it a byte at a time
>
> I agree this whole thing gets to be a religious issue.
> Shouldn't be but it is.
>
> I think one issue that has only been touched on with using
> subroutines vs. procedures and that is static storage.
>
> In writing an RPG IV program, static storage should be
> reduced to the absolute minimum that you need. One of the
> primary values of using subprocedure is that you have local
> variables. Unless you are using subroutines inside
> procedures, you end up with everything being global and
> everything static.
>

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  Snip  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

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