RE: Force EOF in a Subfile

Its tough to stay focused on any goal, but almost impossible to focus on two
goals.  I would not care to dispute your points as they are well made and
certainly laudable.  

However in the World of Programming that I see, no one pays to have the last
ounce wrung out of a program's performance, so we must make choices.  I will
always opt for the more easily maintained choice because those milliseconds
saved really never pan out as usefully saved.time for the company.  It would
be hard for me to imagine that the users in your two examples key in any
more strokes at the end of the day under the more efficient program than the
more effective program.

Please understand, I am not against efficiency, but rather I am for
effectiveness.   In the end an effective program will also usually be pretty
efficient too.

Years ago I sent a secretary to a job skills development seminar and the
next day I asked her what she thought of it.  She said "You tell me.  They
told me that you don't care how efficient I am, you care how effective I am.
  and then she walked away.  It took some thinking, but that afternoon I
chatted with her some more about it.  The seminar was worth it.  I have
never forgotten that lesson.


---------------------------------
Booth Martin
http://www.martinvt.com
---------------------------------
-------Original Message-------
 
From: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
Date: 08/15/05 08:46:23
To: 'RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: Force EOF in a Subfile
 
> From: Booth Martin
>
> As to efficiency in programming...  who cares about efficiency?  We
care
> about effectiveness, not efficiency.  Programs using subfile and READC
are
> user interface programs, where the importance is in ease of user use
and
> future maintenance and understanding.   Looping 500 or even 2500 times
> instead of 1 or 2 times is trivial and of no consequence.
 
I respectfully, but completely, disagree with this statement.
Efficiency in programming is crucial -- it's the difference between a
program that runs and one that runs well.
 
This sort of thinking MAY BE (emphasis on "may") fine on a dedicated
client, but it's death for a machine with 1000 users, because suddenly
instead of 2500 extra reads you've got 2.5 MILLION and that can be the
difference between a program with subsecond access and a program with
two-second access.
 
Yes, there are a hierarchy of factors to be addressed, with the topmost
always being "does this make my company more successful"?  And of
course, "more successful" depends on whatever upper management thinks it
is.
 
But in the long run, efficiency is crucial, if not critical, to the
long-term health of your systems.  Bloated code got us Windows, and
Office, and EJB.  RPG is built to create tight code... shame on the
programmer who doesn't use it that way.
 
Joe
 
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