Best Practices using globals vs. custprops?

[J. Landman Gay]

Stephen Barncard wrote:
> Speaking of persistence, has anyone been using the "Variable 
> preservation by default" feature in Preferences-->Script Editor--> that 
> showed up a few version ago?
> 
> How would this be used, and does anybody actually turn this on?
>

It was turned on by default when it first was implemented and I've left 
it on ever since. It's handy. Without it, editing a script will empty 
the values of all script-local variables. If your script relies on those 
values to function, handlers will fail after editing unless you reset 
the script local values.

With the new property turned on, the script locals retain their values 
after a script edit and you don't have to reset anything.

For example:

local myVar

on opencard
  put 1 into myVar
  ...
end opencard

on otherHandler
  add 1 to myVar
end otherHandler

If I edit the script without preservation turned on, "myVar" will lose 
its value and "otherHandler" will throw an error the next time it runs. 
With the preservation turned on, myVar retains its current value 
throughout any editing session.

I used to have to preface handlers with something like this:

   if myVar = "" then put 1 into myVar

just so I could edit without interruption. Now I don't have to.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com