[Coco] C VS Basic Coco

[Lee]

I've been watching this thread and trying not to jump in much since I
program in C#/JavaScript (web and Node.js) and believe very strongly in
Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin's "Clean Code" philosophy (
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3735293-clean-code).  My opinions are,
by definition, opinionated.  They are biased away from unstructured
languages, like older BASIC (I've said before I don't know enough about
BASIC09 to form an opinion of it), and toward structured languages like C++
and C#.  The ability to descriptively name functions and variables, scope
variables tightly (even JavaScript/ECMAScript has added block scoping to
variables where it used to be only function scoped), and organize code
(classes, compiled libraries, code in separate files/folders, etc.) goes a
long way toward code maintainability.

The end users of the software we write are indeed concerned about
performance. However I feel they are also concerned about stability.  If
the software is blindingly fast, but crashes, or loses their data, or the
enemy ship suddenly moves through a wall they shouldn't have been able to,
that's a major problem.  Maintainability of code and the ability for new
developers (or you in 5 years) to understand it quickly is extremely
important to the ongoing the stability of the code in the long run.  For
these reasons, myself, I prefer to program in a more structured language
than DECB (again, I don't have any experience with BASIC09 to know if it
supports classes or tight variable scoping, etc.).

I'm returning to my lurking intravertial shadows now. :)

<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon>
Virus-free.
www.avast.com
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link>
<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 10:14 AM, Francis Swygert <farna at att.net> wrote:

> Okay, I understand the difference between an interpreted and compiled
> language... mainly execution speed as far as the user is concerned. So an
> interpreted language goes through all the lines on a GOTO/GOSUB until it
> finds the line number. Am I correct in assuming that a compiled language
> like C and BASICC-09 has a quicker link to the reference point and doesn't
> have to go through all the code from call until found?
>
> Someone (can't remember who I gave permission!) converted my "CoCo Family
> Recorder" genealogy database from DECB to BASIC-09. It was purely text
> based, so probably didn't take too much trouble. The only thing that had a
> lot of GOTO or GOSUB statements was the menu program that launched it. The
> database was really a collection of programs that did specific things
> rather than subroutines in one program -- to large for one program, at
> least in DECB. The end of each subprogram would load and run the menu.
> Don't remember how I did anything back then!  Frank Swygert
>  Fix-It-Frank Handyman Service
>  803-604-6548
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>



-- 
Lee Perkins
TigerBase Technologies
leep at tigerbase.com
------------------------------


*[image: Hampton Roads .NET Users Group]2nd Tuesday of every month. Come
meet, learn, network and eat pie!
<http://www.meetup.com/Hampton-Roads-NET-Users-Group/>*