Re: Quick question on readability

John King wrote on 13/12/2006 02:05:30 PM:

 1) I don't like expressions that require me to stop and think about 

what

they are doing. 

Me neither.

Perhaps it is because I was not raised on 'C', but a
quick glance at a statement like "namedIndicator = (var1 = var2);" just
isn't intuitive. RPG has abandoned many of its old abbreviations and
shortcuts (like conditioning and resulting indicators) for the sake of
readability, so why begin using obscure techniques from other languages?

I wouldn't call this an "obscure trick from [another] language".  I think 
it's a property of most computer languages that the result of any given 
expression can be assigned to a variable, and I expect this has been 
available in RPG for quite a long time.  I don't think that comparing this 
to conditioning indicators is accurate.  This is a general rule about the 
result of an expression, where as I need to work out the meaning of a 
given indicator each time I encounter it.  Then again, maybe that's just 
because I started with other languages :)

I always ask myself whether saving a few lines of code with a cute trick
is "worth it".

Yeah, I try to do this too.  Perhaps that should be the golden rule of 
programming.

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