You lost me when you say that rather than embrace the conventions, standards,
and features of the language I'm coding in (REXX), I should restrict it to the
limitations of other languages.
The maxim is to assume that readers of your code are familiar with the language
you're coding in, and would expect your code to follow those conventions. It
would /defy/ their expectations to code otherwise.
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Paul Gilmartin
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2024 8:56 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: REXX vs other languages WAS: Rexx numeric digits and scientific
notation question
On Tue, 23 Apr 2024 10:59:47 +1000, Andrew Rowley wrote:
> ...
>To me, it is much clearer to be explicit, including the concatenation, e.g.
>"DELETE " || foo
>seems much clearer about exactly what is happening/expected, which are
>variables and which are (expected to be) constant etc.
>
That overkill is apt to confuse a POSIX shell partisan who would
see the blank as part of the command name and expect a
failure such as:
813 $ 'rm ' foo
-bash: rm : command not found
814 $
The maxim is assume your readers have a moderate, not
advanced, knowledge of the language and make little
concession to conventions of other languages. Don't:
'DELETE' || ' ' || value( 'foo' )
My stumbling block learning Shell was excessive familiarity
with CMS, where command strings built by Rexx are parsed
again by SVC 202. I tried to build command strings with sh
to pass to a nonexistent subsequent parser. I got better in
a couple days.
--
gil
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