Re: Trying to use STRING


"razor" <iruddock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1174297445.146281.315510@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Wow

I'm beginning to wonder what I started here. Since I posted the
original question I've completed the work, program is live and a
cheque is on the way to my address. That will do me.

In addition, the style of coding I have used is very similar to the
other 600+ programs I have to maintain. I think this is more important
to me. Knowing that all of the programs do similar tasks in the same
way makes it very easy to remember each program. This to me seems more
important than adopting a newer or 'better' (according to who?) way of
doing things. I can't afford to pick up a program, find it contains
many GO TO's and decide to rip them out because its not the done thing
can I. In addition, if I use that program as a base for a new one, I
do not want to change too much for fear of introducing bugs.

Working on my own I can make these decisions myself which is a great
freedom. I certainly do not miss working in an environment where
somebody deems 'nested ifs' or EXIT constructs to be unsuitable for
any reason and bans their use. Next minute you are in an annual review
and somebody is armed with a piece of your code (that is working of
course) and wants to beat you down with it.

From the posts here the one piece of code I did like was the INSPECT
statement to get the first non-space character. Very simple and I
should use it, BUT none of the other programs use it and so I begin to
move away. Hmmm, needs consideration. Everytime I look at other
peoples code I think 'never seen it done like that before', its just
different thats all. I have never use the INSPECT statement in earnest
before. Thinking about it thats because the original COBOL I used (DG
ICOBOL 1985) did not support this (and many other) statement.

The comment about using WS-SUB not as a subscript is just silly. I use
WS-SUB(1/2/3/4) as very local fields to do various things and not
necessarily as a subscript. And as all of the programs do the same,
its easy :-).

Sure, it is silly to you. Because you know what you mean, and you have
developed this as a familiar habit over time. As you are the only one
maintaining the code, it really doesn't matter too much.

My objections were purely personal, and totally a matter of opinion.

However, you have played some trumps in your discussion above...

1. Maintenance must conform to the existing style to be effective.
2. Banning constructs is never a good thing. (Education is much better...)
3. Programs must work, before any other consideration.

No issues with any of that. :-)


Many thanks to all

Speaking for myself, you're very welcome :-)

Pete.


.

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