[dba-VB] Recent Discussion from MS on VB.Net and C# in VS 2010

Hang on, there  is a word I have never heard before....anagnorisis...

Hmm, cool word. I will try to remember that.

I have to say that I do agree with him. I can recall back in the Cobol days
that if you had an error early on, the compile gaily marched on spewing out
thousands of cascading "false-positive" errors.  When I looked at the
examples on that NetCobol you posted I had to smile and say "..why on earth
would I want to go back to that?..."

Drews analogy is pretty accurate from what I can see, particulary the part
of about the curly braces emcompassing (and thus defining) the borders of
code-structure.  But what structure?  All curly braces look alike.

The VBA compiler stops with a very-near exact reason for the non-compilation
and, in most case - not all, a reasonable explanation of why.

I am not agueing against C# or any other language but rather in the
supposition being put forward directly and indirectly that somehow it is a
"better" platform for implementing code. Remember Pascal - I started on that
back in Borland days.  That went by the board.  There is no earthly reason
why I would need to do the C#.net route in preference to the VBA.net route
with ONE EXCEPTION and that is the one put forward by William where he
stated, inter alia, that there was MORE code examples for plagarism.  Most
programmers rely upon examples of others to learn and move forward and code
examples are the life blood of learning.

I would be interested to see how Charlotte responds.


Max



-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil
Salakhetdinov
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 5:42 PM
To: 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.'
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Recent Discussion from MS on VB.Net and C# in VS 2010

Hi Drew --

OK. Even if "the only 'accurate' part on my statement is BRIEF" that's good
enough for me. 

Max and Charlotte, do you agree with that Drew's anagnorisis ? :)

Thank you.

--Shamil {^;^}

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Drew Wutka
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 8:24 PM
To: Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Recent Discussion from MS on VB.Net and C# in VS 2010

" curly brackets do enhance code readability, make it unambiguous, clear,
relevant, accurate and as brief as possible"

The only 'accurate' part of that statement, Shamil, is BRIEF.

Unabmiguous.... Nope, If I write Function TestProcess(), I better see an End
Function.  Not End If, End Loop, End Sub, I know I am looking for End
Function to be on the last line of the function.  With a {....him, now I'm
looking for a }, hey there's one...oh wait, I hit a { first...wait, another
{, and another, okay, and here's a }, and oops, another {, crap, is that 3
or 4 {'s, darn, need to go back up.  Or, I could trust the programmers
'perfect ' indentation to verify that the brackets are good...... So is
indentation and faith really less ambiguous then finding the first 'End
Function'?

Clear ...  Hmmmmm, that pretty much is the opposite of ambiguous, thus it's
the same as unambiguous.  But I'll smack some more logic on this term for
you...after scrolling through a page of code, exactly how does } give me a
clear indication of what just happened?  End If tells me I just hit the end
of a logical statement.  End Function tells me I just hit the end of a
procedure...... What did } tell me that I just ended?

Relevent ...  Hmmm, spilled into this one with Clear..... what again did }
just end?  How is it relevant at the bottom of a page I've scrolled down to
get too?  

Accurate ...  Really?  Odd, if I miss an End if, the compiler will tell me,
'Missing End If', does a C compiler tell you you're missing a }?  I know
when I'm writing SQL with a slew of parenthesis, getting told that a ) is
missing is like finding a needle in a haystack sometimes.  But getting told,
hey, you're missing an End if....MUCH easier to find, because the language
is providing a MORE accurate relevance, which is clearer, and less ambiguous
to a human eye/brain, then symbols with tribal meaning.

Man, I could do this all day!  And to think I rarely post on this list!

;)

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil
Salakhetdinov
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 7:02 AM
To: 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.'
Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Recent Discussion from MS on VB.Net and C# in VS 2010

OK, Max :)

Not trying to convince you (:)) just noting that curly brackets do enhance
code readability, make it unambiguous, clear, relevant, accurate and as
brief as possible - all using just two generic (helping hands) symbols - '{'
and '}' . And in most of the cases curly brackets are inalienable
(indefeasible, integral, essential) part of the code - remove them and code
blocks will become ambiguous...

Programming languages do come from mathematics, and therefore (IMO just
IMO)
using special symbols to keep a programming language syntax as concise and
as unambiguous as possible is a good and productive idea...

And in VB(A)(.NET) one have to use the whole set of (natural language)
substitutes:

- Namespace ... End Namespace
- Module ... End Module
- Class ... End Class
- Sub ... End Sub
- Function ... End Function
- For ... Next
- While ... End While
- If .... Then ... End If
- ...


Thank you.

--
Shamil  {^;^}

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