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From: "Robert Martin" <rmartin@oma.com>
Subject: Re: Software landmines (loops)
Date: 1998/09/03
Message-ID: <6sm6md$3fh$1@hirame.wwa.com>#1/1
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Date: 1998-09-03T00:00:00+00:00
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Matthew Heaney wrote in message ...
>"Robert Martin" <rmartin@oma.com> writes:

>>     for(;;)
>>     {
>>        Get(N);
>>        if (N)
>>          <process N>
>>        else
>>          break;
>>     }
>>

>
>Boy oh boy, Robert, we must come from different programming schools!

And that's part of the point I'm trying to make.  There is no single
readability standard.  We all come from different schools in some way or
another.  So what you think is readable, will not be as readable to me, or
to someone else.

>
>The dangerous thing about the code fragment above is that the else part
>can get lost, especially if <process N> is long-ish.
>
>My philosophy is, handle the simple case first, then bail out:
>
>   for (;;)
>   {
>      Get (N);
>
>      if (!N) break;
>
>      <process N>
>   }


Ask yourself why 'break' is the most important concept of this function?
Why is it more important to get the exceptional conditions out of the way
first rather than to get right into the actual purppose of the function.

I prefer a style that moves into the real action of the function as quickly
as possible, while deferring the exceptional conditions to the end.

Consider this, would you prefer that catch statements *precede* try blocks?

catch(memerr)
{
}
catch(fileerr)
{
}
try
{
}


Robert C. Martin    | Design Consulting   | Training courses offered:
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14619 N Somerset Cr | Tel: (800) 338-6716 |   C++
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"One of the great commandments of science is:
    'Mistrust arguments from authority.'" -- Carl Sagan