And then they (the anonymous they) came out with a version that allowed the source to be unlimited while still limiting the object to 32K
Which made the whole world scratch their head. -----Original Message----- From: Charlie Noah <cwn...@comcast.net> To: U2 Users List <u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org> Sent: Fri, Mar 4, 2011 6:41 am Subject: Re: [U2] Is this worth rewriting? As usual, Mecki, you expressed my thoughts eloquently. I agree 100%. IF (test) ELSE drives me about as buggy as multiple IF/THEN/ELSE all on the same line. If I can figure out what the original intent was, I change the code so I can understand it at a glance later. I'm not sure why, but OPEN xxx ELSE never bothered me. Ah, the 32K limit, I remember it well. I had a cheat I used sometimes. I would split the source into 2 or more pieces, then INCLUDE the second, third, etc. at the end of the first. As long as the resultant pseudo-code was less than 32K, I was able to get away with it (at least in Microdata Reality). It made editing fun sometimes, but it worked. I also remember jockeying source around so that GOSUBs wouldn't frame fault. That often made a very noticeable difference in execution speed. Those were the days! ;-) Charlie Noah Charles W. Noah Associates cwn...@comcast.net The views and opinions expressed herein are my own (Charlie Noah) and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions or policies of any of my former, current or future employers, employees, clients, friends, enemies or anyone else who might take exception to them. On 03-04-2011 7:25 AM, Mecki Foerthmann wrote: > What absolute and utter rubbish! > > You never had to write "IF (test) ELSE ..." in Pick. > READ did have a THEN clause as far back as I can remember (mid-80s) - > only LOCKED came later. > You just don't use it that often because you usually only want to do > something if your READ fails. > Typically READ rec FROM FILE,Id ELSE rec = "" > IF is different. I at least expect that after a test I'll do something > if the condition is true. > The ELSE clause is optional. > I wasn't even aware you could leave the THEN clause out until I > encountered some code that did that. > That is IMHO one of the worst coding sins and I always change it to IF > NOT(test) THEN if I find it anywhere. > I just have been bitten too many times with this nonsense code. > Aren't I lucky that I don't have to maintain your code? :-P > You wouldn't say ' if you brush your teeth else you get decay' in a > conversation, so why would you want to do it in your code? > But hey, why make life easy for the next guy if with a little bit of > effort you can make it really difficult? > If it was hard to write it should be hard to read, right? > > The only thing that forced us to write code as compact as possible in > the really olden days was the 32K item size limit. > > > > On 04/03/2011 10:50, Wols Lists wrote: >> On 03/03/11 20:50, Tony Gravagno wrote: >>> Some people apparently have brains that toggle IF NOT ELSE faster >>> than others. But apparently this construct is of concern to some >>> people, whether as a matter of elegance or a matter of coding >>> effectiveness. Recognizing this, the more I can eliminate those >>> lines where I or someone else needs to "brain stutter" out of the >>> flow, the better I think the code is. >>> >> Problem is, what causes some people to stutter is what other people find >> easy. Two cases in point ... >> >> A lot of my code does "if (test) else", which is a very "pick" >> construct. In fact, a lot of code *had* to be written that way because a >> lot of conditional statements (READ etc) didn't have a THEN back then. >> >> And when I was learning C. I taught my instructor a trick or two - an >> exercise was to count how many 3's in a pack of cards. So I did >> >> count += (value == 3); >> >> When I read my code out for the instructor to write on the board, he >> just couldn't hear it right until I spelt it out letter by letter. >> Again, it's stuff I'd expect a Pickie to do without having to think! But >> the instructor just couldn't get it until he'd written it on the board >> and took a good hard look. >> >> Cheers, >> Wol >> _______________________________________________ >> U2-Users mailing list >> U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org >> http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users >> >> > _______________________________________________ > U2-Users mailing list > U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org > http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users > _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
