Przemek and Mindaugas:
Thanks for the clarification. I missed the finer point when Mindaugas
first discussed "ADS", but then the second paragraph said
"I propose to rename RDD from ADT ..."
as you noticed, I thought we were still talking about just "ADS".
So, yes, I would agree ADSADT is better than also supporting "ADT".
It might be good to find out how many people might be impacted,
but if it's just a question of changing the rddSetDefault line,
and if an obvious error is generated after the change that makes
it clear what the programmer should fix if he missed the change,
then it sounds like a good fix.
As for the additional idea of removing "ADS" and:
> so in fact you had over four years to update your code
> Was it my mistake that I left "ADS" RDD?
I never really thought that being "left for backward compatibility"
implied a suggestion for changing code.
For me personally, just changing the rddSetDefault line is no problem.
BUT I wouldn't recommend breaking users' apps if the only reason is
to remove the backwards compatibility for cleanliness sake.
Though I go back that many years, thousands of new users may very
well have used that syntax up to present day, especially in light
of the lack of significant documentation for rddads.
Have new users been directed to examples or guidelines that suggest
the newer syntax and *not* using "ADS"?
One more point: to "reduce" the ADS RDDs to *just* the specific rdds
MAY imply the temptation to remove the ability to just set the FileType
from one to the other (e.g. from ADT to DBF and back again) in the same
workarea. If this is where we're headed, it would break a LOT of
people's code and probably create a lot of grief for people who just
get a Harbour update, then suddenly find themselves having to debug and
fixup potentially large amounts of code.
I'm not arguing for clinging to bad design, but concern for our users'
sanity is a virtue.
Thanks for all your work,
--
Brian Hays
> -Original Message-
> From: Przemysław Czerpak [mailto:dru...@acn.waw.pl]
> Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2009 8:16 PM
> To: Xharbour-Developers List; Harbour Project Main Developer List.
> Subject: Re: [xHarbour-developers] RDD: ADT -> ADSADT
>
> On Thu, 26 Nov 2009, Brian Hays wrote:
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> > The addition of specific "sub-rdds" of ADSCDX etc. came years later.
> > I, and I imagine a lot of other people who started using rddads
> > early on, never had a need to explicitly use those other rdds by
> name.
>
> Any one who has code like:
>
>proc copy_table( cSrc, cSrcRDD, cDst, cDstRDD )
> use (cSrc) via (cSrcRDD)
> copy to (cDst) via (cDstRDD)
>return
>
> designed to work with different RDDs in Clipper, needs ADS* RDDs to
> port
> his code without introducing unnecessary and incompatible with other
> RDDs
> modifications which are necessary to make working code like:
>copy_table( "sales", "ADSCDX", "sales2", "ADSADT" )
>
> In fact "ADS" RDD can be safely removed because the only one reason
> to keep it are user habbits but ADS* RDDs cannot be removed without
> reducing important functionality - working VIA clause in different
> command/functions which allows to easy switch between RDDs.
>
> > Are you suggesting that we should now have to re-write our apps by
> > converting ADS to ADSADT? But wait: IIRC (I'm not sure),
> > ADSCDX is the DEFAULT for ADS, so converting it to ADT doesn't
> > really make sense, does it?
> > If you're suggesting a change that would require people to change
> > code that's been growing for 9 years, there needs to be a stronger
> > reason to force the change than just compatibility with other rdds,
> > IMHO.
> > Or am I missing something?
>
> Mindaugas wants to change only "ADT" RDD to "ADSADT" and you are not
> using it so it's not a problem for you.
> Anyhow you wrote that it's 9 years code.
> In the past I left "ADS" RDD only for backward compatibility:
>
>2005-09-02 20:10 UTC+0200 Przemyslaw Czerpak
> (druzus/at/priv.onet.pl)
>+ register ADS as three separate RDDs: ADSNTX, ADSCDX, ADT
> (ADS RDD left for backward compatibility) - they do not
> need to set table type.
>
> so in fact you had over four years to update your code.
> This suggests that forcing some modification immediately is better
> because four years ago it was only 5 years code ;-)
> Was it my mistake that I left "ADS" RDD?
>
> best regards,
> Przemek
>
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