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From: "Kevin J. Weise" <kweise@c3i-ccmail.sed.redstone.army.mil>
Subject: Re: Continue/next statement, static variables, and block comments
Date: 1996/07/23
Message-ID: <4t2ohl$brq@michp1.redstone.army.mil>#1/1
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references: <4ssspn$501@umbc10.umbc.edu> <4t05mo$f6d@michp1.redstone.army.mil>
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Date: 1996-07-23T00:00:00+00:00
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Previously, mabzug1@umbc.edu (Mordechai T. Abzug) wrote (with deletions):
>>One last question (well, this one's more in the way of a gripe, since I'm
>>fairly certain I'm not missing anythhing here): no block commenting.  
>>Line comments are a superior way of commenting when documentation is the 
>>only thing you have in mind, but if you want to comment out a large 
>>section of code, you want block comments.  

.. and I responded (with deletions):

>
>               ... I've seen too much confusing code where the author(s) 
>commented out blocks of code & it wasn't apparent to me if it was old code
>that needed to be deleted (but wasn't because the "programmer" wasn't sure
>if that was the needed correction) or anticipated upgrade code for future
>capabilities.  In any case, block comments of this nature are difficult 
>to detect the further apart the beginning and end of the block are from 
>each other.   
>
>I believe that if one needs to retain segments of code for historical 
>reasons, then a CM tool, such as DEC VAX/CMS or Unix CVS/RCS is a far 
>better mechanism for doing so.  

While I haven't changed my mind about this, I have looked at the ada-mode 
for emacs, and found that you can comment and uncomment regions of code.  
Certainly, you have your supporters in the Ada community, Mr. Abzug, and 
they have provided you with a solution!  If you aren't familiar with it, 
emacs is a great tool (esp. as augmented by the ada mode, v2.12) and I 
highly recommend it; but it does require some getting used to.  I hope you 
can utilize it in your programming environment.

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Kevin J. Weise             email:  kweise@sed.redstone.army.mil
COLSA Corporation          voice:  (205) 842-9083
Huntsville, AL

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