Re: How to process a file

From: Lueko Willms (l.willms_at_jpberlin.de)
Date: 11/06/04 

Date: 06 Nov 2004 17:25:00 GMT

. On 02.11.04
  wrote docdwarf@panix.com
     on /COMP/LANG/COBOL
     in cm98k8$l7v$1@panix5.panix.com
  about Re: How to process a file

d> ... and if there's a reader who looks at that and cannot almost
d> viscerally grasp what is going on then I'd be willing to wager said
d> reader has fewer than two year's worth of experience.

   I grasp immediately is that somebody has created a complicated maze
of trails and scents instead of drawing a simple map for an apparently
simple data processing task.

   BTW, since you pose the question for experience credentials -- my
COBOL experience goes back to 1978, when I learned it together with
FORTRAN and Byte-Assembler, and ended the course as the best student
of the year (at the Control Data Institute here in Frankfurt).

d> This kind of code is old enough to vote and then some... and
d> there's a few reasons why it has been in production that long.

  I can think of two:
  - there has never been an external requirement to change it
  - the code is so fragile that nobody dares to touch it

d> Sure, it may not gently stroke one's delicate sense of
d> aesthetics...

   It is not a question of aestetics, although elegance is the result
of simplicity and lucidity, but of program correctness, but, well,
that amounts to the same criterion.

d> but, for the most part, it works.

   Despite. But it should not only work for most parts, but for all.

d> Don't like it? Fine... rewrite it and test the rewrite...

   A template for processing a file can be found in my other message
in this thread, answering Federico Fonseca.

d> after you figure out what budget-code to use, that is.

   Maybe the budget-code for saving time, or to avoid rewriting the
whole system in Java, and hiring a new team for that.

   Now you should retort: "Mr Willms! There is not *the* way!", and
let me cut short the next step in our conversation, that sure, there
are many ways to come from A to B.

   One can even walk on the hands or walk backwards, or walk on
stilts. That has its purposes, but is mostly not appropriate when
one's movement is geared towards getting over a certain distance in an
optimum of minimizing time and minimising costs.

   When I want to go from Paris to London, of course I can walk to
Calais, swim across the Channel and go on walking up to London; this
is the best way for a sporting exercise or to get into the Guiness
Book of Records. But when the goal is to get there quick and
comfortable, the best bet might be to take the train from city center
to city center, passing the channel via the tunnel.

   Or, to get from Jackson Heights in Queens (NY) to Lower Manhattan,
one can go to La Guardia Airport and fly via some hub to Newark
Airport, and get to Manhattan via the Newark Journal Square and the
PATH train. But simpler and more appropriate for the task would be to
get into the E or R subway lines...

   Having a map instead of just knowing some trails can make the
difference of not seeing the wood for the trees.

   Questions of style like using upper or lower case letters don't
matter here. But program structure sure does matter.

Yours,
Lüko Willms http://www.willms-edv.de
/--------- L.WILLMS@jpberlin.de -- Alle Rechte vorbehalten --

Der Satz muß noch mit einem Bruch multipliziert werden. -G.C.Lichtenberg

Relevant Pages

  • [PATCH][RFC] relayfs (1/4) (Documentation)
    ... Documentation below for a description of relayfs). ... moved some of what once was exposed in the API into an opaque reader ... added relay_resetwhich some kernel clients sometimes may need ... +separate "channel" and each channel is a file. ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • [RFC/PATCH 1/4] relayfs Documentation
    ... This 4-part patch contains the latest version of relayfs (see below ... successful writeto the channel. ... +channel is a separate memory buffer allocated from within kernel space ... +rchan_reader instance, which is used to encapsulate reader settings ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: Introducing bit-part characters
    ... the Springman represents how electricity is ... feelings about the city by thinking about the Springman as he watches ... tell the reader - those are, to some degree, revision concerns more than ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Deboning
    ... unnecessary worldbuilding is to the success of a novel. ... It is unnecessary to give your reader an encyclopedic account of the ... planets that have one landscape, one city, and one pub, in which any ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Adding DVB-S to MCE 2005 with dual analogue
    ... We have 2 providers here that uses different cards. ... And then ofcourse I have the analogue antenna channel, ... Are you sure that this 2 card reader will actually work with MCE? ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter)