Re: code partitioning (was: Future with Ada)

["John R. Strohm" <strohm@airmail.net>]

Well, yes, in theory that is all true.

In practice, in thirty years of slinging bits, both as student and as
professional, I have seen exactly one procedure that NEEDED to be more than
one printer page of code and that COULDN'T easily be factored down any
further.  (For the record, it was the photon torpedo routine in the old
Matuszek-Reynolds-McGehearty-Cohen STARTRK game.)

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:a6lfgd$gj6$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> Well, yea, I could see that - even breaking it up into a "when mammal ...
> when others..." case in something like this. It kind of goes to my
original
> point: You ought to keep ifs and cases short and as unnested as may make
> sense for the problem at hand, but don't go crazy.
>
> You've got to use some judgment, thinking "Shortness and non-nestedness
are
> good things taken from The Book Of Devoutly To Be Desired Results, but
lets
> not forget that the spirit of the law is to make things readable and
> comprehensible" If statements nest for three or four levels or span
several
> dozen lines, yet remain comprehensible (being a natural reflection of the
> problem at hand) and breaking them up would require unnatural acts of
> contortion, then don't fight it. Programming is often an "art" that
requires
> an "artistic eye" rather than an exact science... much like other writing
> and communication skills.
>
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
>
>
> "Wes Groleau" <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message
> news:3C8E3110.F36F2DC8@despammed.com...
> >
> > Without actually endorsing this, here's a sort of
> > borderline situation:
> >
> >    case Animal is
> >
> >       when Horse | Tiger   | Elephant | Whale | Mouse |
> >            Dog   | Gorilla | Platypus | Koala | Dingo   =>
> >
> >          Classify_Mammal (Animal);
> >
> >       when Lizard | Snake | Alligator | Tortoise =>
> >
> >          Classify_Reptile (Animal);
> >
> >       ......
> >
> >       when others =>
> >
> >          Classify_Some_Really_Wierd_Thing (Animal);
> >
> >                         -- gratuitous demo of
> >    end case (Animal);   -- yet another way of
> >                         -- naming a case statement
> >
> >   -- to bring it back to the original topic
> >   -- now that I've updated the subject line  :-)
> >
>
>
>