Re: (none)

[seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman)]

In article <1992Dec3.155935.8187@inmet.camb.inmet.com> stt@spock.camb.inmet.com
 (Tucker Taft) writes:
>In article <1992Dec3.094334.20038@sei.cmu.edu> 
>  firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:
>
>>In article <9212022347.AA03025@s405.dseg.ti.com> 
>  fmoore@sun405.dseg.ti.com (Freeman Moore) writes:
>
>>>We have a programming standard that limits the number of
>>>executable statements in a compilation unit.
>>
>>There's the answer: change the standard.  Presumably, this standard
>>is meant to enhance code readability, testability, maintainability
>>&c.  Simply hacking out a chunk of code as "is separate" will not
>>enhance any of the above, so the standard is defeating itself.
>
>I agree completely with Robert Firth on this one, and would go further.  
>Arbitrary limits on the size of a compilation unit are a mistake.  

[remainder deleted]

Hmmm....deja vu all over again. I have in my office, somewhere, an old
coding standard from a large (VERY large) company, to remain nameless.
A pioneer in the old days of structured programming, this company's
people were promulgating the idea - rule of thumb - that a module
should be roughly 100 statements long, because that's two pages of
listing, i.e. what you could spread out on your desk and take in with
a sweep of the eyeball. 

The _rule of thumb_ was that if a module (I think they were talking 
Fortran or PL/I procedures) was much longer than that, it would be hard 
to debug and understand, and serious consideration should be given to
its re-design, as it was probably functionally incoherent as well.

Make sense? Sure. But somewhere along the line, this very useful
rule of thumb was grabbed by a bureaucrat who turned it into a
_Coding Standard_, to be enforced with all the ruthlessness for 
which Code Police are legendary. Naturally the Code Police did not
understand the code they were reading; they just counted the LOC
per module.

You've probably guessed by now how the programmers responded, but what
the hell, I'll tell you anyway. They simply chopped the long modules at
100-LOC intervals, making separate procedures (parameterless, I assume)
out of each 100-LOC chunk. This satisfied the bureaucrats....

Beware of knee-jerk, ruthlesssly-enforced coding standards. Better to
apply a little common sense.

BTW - as a Distinguished Reviewer of the Ada Quality and Style guide,
I'm happy to see the relatively softer tones in which this document -
whose final version is nearing release - is speaking. That's one
project in which common sense really does seem to be winning.

Cheers -

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"Americans want the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
------------------------------------------------------------------------