As programming environments get more powerful programers get lazy

[Richard Gaskin]

william humphrey wrote:
> I wonder if it is really bad that the very powerful programming environments
> let us do stuff we (or at least I) could never have imagined possible
> before. I'm only saying this because in other forums sometimes people say
> "oh scripting that's not programming".  My answer to them is usually "Why
> aren't you writing machine code in hex -- that would be the most efficient".

Efficient for whom?

Assembler may be kind to machines, but machines don't matter. We work 
for them, not the other way around.

Clients matter, so return on investment is a major part of choosing a 
language, letting the machine do as much of the tedium of bit-counting 
as possible so you can focus on features.

Customers matter even more.  Time-to-market is a critical factor when 
choosing a language:  the sooner you put a feature into someone's hands 
the sooner they're making or saving time.  Writing the same feature in 
Assembler, or even C++, will take orders of magnitude more time, meaning 
less time saved for the user.

When folks ask that question, send 'em these:

In Praise of Scripting:  Real Programming Pragmatism
<http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~loui/praiseieee.txt>

Scripting: Higher Level Programming
for the 21st Century
<http://home.pacbell.net/ouster/scripting.html>


> About the only complaint I have with RunRev is it allows you to put your
> code everywhere (don't want to give that feature up either) but someone else
> coming along to look at your stack can take a very long time to figure it
> out if there is some code in a card, some in a stack, some in buttons etc.

Every language worth using gives you the power to build a gun and point 
it at your foot. :)  Or not.  Where you put your code is up to you. 
Freedom.

I tend to put most of my code into centralized libraries, with related 
functionality grouped together, leaving as little as practical in the UI.

> Maybe RunRev mothership should publish some guidelines on how scripting
> should be done to try and prevent that problem? I know that there are some
> excellent guidelines on writing clear scripts on someone's website. The
> recommended consistently naming variables depending on whether they were
> global, an array, or temporary. I think that those guidelines along with
> some others should really be consolidated into something that the mothership
> could recommend for our use.

Maybe you were thinking of this one?


Fourth World Scripting Style Guide
Helpful tips for xTalk, Lingo, and other 4GLs
<http://www.fourthworld.com/embassy/articles/scriptstyle.html>

A companion piece on structure is in the works...

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com