Re: The Elements of Informix-4gl Style?

Path: emory!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!agate!ames!olivea!uunet!sybus.sybus.com!myrddin!tct!jim From: jim@tct.com (Jim Kunzman) Newsgroups: comp.databases.informix Keywords: 4gl style Message-ID: <29B7A050.1042@tct.com> Date: 6 Mar 92 16:39:44 GMT References: <1992Mar5.021035.18374@StarConn.com> Organization: TC Telemanagement, Clearwater, FL According to pmahler@StarConn.com (Paul Mahler): > > >Looking at most informix programs makes me want to puke. They >all look like they were written at terminals with organ pedals >instead of a shift key. Of course, this is only a small part of the >problem. > >Most C programs I have seen don't have this problem. If they >were written by generally competent programmers they are >generally well structured, well styled and easy to read. > >Most 4gl programs look like they were written by stupid BASIC >programmers. This seems to be an artifact of the very first >examples that came out of Informix where all the key words >were in upper case and lots of extra blank lines were inserted. > I have to agree with Paul. Proper use of lower case and/or mixed case makes code much easier to read. Early programs used upper case exclusively because of teletype limitations and terminal limitations. However, no magazine or newspaper would ever conceive of abusing readers by overusing upper case. Neither should programming languages or programmers. Uppercasing KEYWORDS is particularly annoying and causes me to pause and wonder why anyone would want to bother highlighting them. It decreases input speed for both the programmer and the reader. -Jim -- Jim Kunzman at Teltronics/TCT <jim@tct.uucp>, <uunet!pdn!tct!jim> ----- Mr. Gill Bates on IBM OS/2, "Out damn spot!"