RE: Cycle Processing vs. Doing it my way -- RPG400-L

Couldn't have said it any better.  The code should be
1) Easy to understand for someone OTHER THEN YOU!
2) Since we have 4096 bytes for field definitions, please use a few of
these within reason - Cryptic 4 byte field names should be a thing of
the past now...(GRZK - the Greater Redmond Zero Kelvin... yeah - that's
what that meant...)
3) Be relatively optimized - but don't try & out smart the stuff just
for the sake of doing it (WOW - that program worked SOO much better when
I Overrode the file read/write buffers using an Override DBF command -
...)
4) Stuff that is business logic MUST BE COMMENTED.
5) Make common routines callable/procedures/whatever you'd like.
Callable w/parms has advantages because Web stuff can utilize these
common routines...(pricing, allocation, etc..)
6) No empty IF's like If<blank>Else<something>- give them purpose
IF<something>ELSE<something> or just IF<something> etc...
7) Try not to use GOTO's - if you DO however - NEVER goto a tag
outside/within subroutines... (I've SEEN THIS!)

NEVER re-write something to get rid of "old stuff you don't like 'cause
you didn't write 'em"  I've seen this happen, and unless there's
something drastically wrong with the original, the user will NOT be
pleased because you got rid of 8 lines of un-desirable code, they will
be angry that you didn't deliver that "extra column" to their report
on-time.

And you know - I'm way off topic, so I'm a gonna stop there... :)

Andrew Borts / Webmaster
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-----Original Message-----
From: Mike.Collins@syan.co.uk [mailto:Mike.Collins@syan.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 12:55 PM
To: rpg400-l@midrange.com
Subject: RE: Cycle Processing vs. Doing it my way


I think all the answers point to the same thing....."it depends". Noone
should reject a technique out of hand when it may be the most apposite
for
the purpose. For instance, I might have a piece of horrendous legacy
code
in front of me to which a minor change has been requested. Do I a)
rewrite
the entire program to use structured technique or b) insert a single
GOTO
to solve the problem. Compare that to having to do a major change to the
same program, where the merits of rewriting may well outweigh those of
leaving the unstructured mess as is. I completely agree with the opinion
that the objective of writing a program is to condense everything into
the
least number of lines, as per the indicator example. Let us leave that
to C
programmers!

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