Best Practice for Library Stacks

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Thu Feb 13 10:15:52 EST 2014


Ender Nafi wrote:

> Is there any difference, especially performance-wise, between these two approaches:
>
> 1. Library code is in the library stack’s script and it’s activated by
> _start using stack “libraryCode”
>
> 2. Library code is distributed to different buttons of a card of the main stack and it’s activated by
> _repeat with x=1 to the number of buttons of card “libraryCode”
> __insert the script of button x of card “libraryCode” into back
> _end repeat

I haven't measured that but I would expect any difference to be 
inconsequential.

Access to handlers in behaviors measures slightly faster than in 
libraries, but this modest speed bump is possible because of their more 
limited scope so plan accordingly.

FWIW, remember that even backscripts and libraries can use behaviors, 
and behavior can be chained as of v6.1, so if it helps clarify your 
design to think of the scripts as classes and subclasses this is now a 
powerful new option available to us.

Using behaviors attached to backScripts may give you the greatest 
balance of flexibility and performance, depending on the particulars of 
your setup.

I wouldn't recommend using behaviors solely for the speed bump, as it's 
only a few microseconds.  But where behaviors can clarify your design, 
where limiting scope can be beneficial, it's great that we have them and 
can now nest them.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
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