RE: Strange behavior w/%editc()

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Jim Langston
>
> Joe,
>
> That being the case, if there is no noticeable degradation in
> speed, and you
> can make a program easier to modify in the design phase, you just brought
> down the cost of the program in the long run.  And most businesses are in
> the business of making money.  If it takes me 10% longer to write
> a program
> to make it more maintainable, and if that makes it 20% faster to maintain,
> I've just saved the company money.
>
> If, on the other hand, my goal is to write a quick program fast that is a
> pain to maintain, that program is going to cost my company a lot
> more in the
> long run.

Please let me reiterate my position: I highly recommend maintainable code.
Even in my post that your quoted, I used the phrase "with an eye towards
maintainability".  My position is that a long statement with nested BIFs is
not inherently more maintainable than a MOVE.  In my opinion, it's lesds
maintainable, especially by people who aren't that familiar with BIFs, which
happes to be the majority of RPG programmers, but that's a somewhat
different issue.

My point is that you can make your code perfectlyu maintainable with
COMMENTS; "self-documenting" syntax is unnecessary, and in this particular
case, actually has a negative impact on productivity.  As to "noticeable
degradation", that's a very tricky area... what might not show up in testing
has a tendency to show up in production.  It is my opinion that you should
use good, fast code with appropriate comments as opposed to slower,
"self-documenting" code.

No biggie.  This therad has run its course, I think.  I just wanted to make
sure that you didn't think I was suggesting unmaintainable code at the sake
of fast development.  I'm just saying that the documentation shouldn't be
derived from the syntax of the source itself, especially if that syntax is
harder tio read, write and understand, as it clearly is in this specific
case.

Joe