Reply to: Technical Documentation - Is there anything worse?

[ratewhore]

[AtW]

An old boss of mine used to freak if I ever used GOTO's!!

GOTO is a very good thing - it translates into unconditional JMP and thus makes easy for CPU to predict next branch: a lot of performance drops these days are due to branch mispredictions.

[SallyAnne]

I've heard COBOL is still quite lucrative. Is that true?

I doubt it. Most companies I know of moved to Micro-Focus COBOL years ago (IBM based stuff (drag and drop) instead of the old ICL mainframe stuff).

I've never contracted as a COBOList so I wouldn't know.

I never see any jobs though.

[el duder]

less of it Mr Link Detached Mock Tudor Facade UPvc Conservatory Four Bedrooms even though one is on 2metres square Mercedes A Class and old Landrover Discovery... can anyone else add any more ?

Milan.

ummm, nice day isnt it....

[wendigo100]

Oh happy COBOL days...

I've heard COBOL is still quite lucrative. Is that true?

[SallyAnne]

It hasn't got a GOTO in it...

An old boss of mine used to freak if I ever used GOTO's!! You'd think I'd planted a bomb or something!!

Oh happy COBOL days...

[wendigo100]

Who actually documents their work? I do and good stuff it is to. But god it's boring.

I am a tech author. If you don't want to do it, I will. My rates are very reasonable. Though not as reasonable as milan's.

[ratewhore]

Typical amateurs' mistake is have a loop as produced above by MF where a complete lack of delay will cause that piece of code to hog CPU or other resources: since he is not an old timer he does not really have an excuse that at the time of his youth (years that are long gone for good) computers were not multi-tasking so this crappy piece of code would do just fine, which is probably fair enough for DOS v1.0, but certainly not for modern OSes.

Now below is a better piece of code, but it still lacks key element, what is it?

Check Tape
If Tape Full then Change Tape
If Tape Not Full then Wait
Execute Delay of X Seconds
Repeat first Step.

What's this? A coding pissing contest?

FFS!!!

[Lucy]

Who actually documents their work? I do and good stuff it is to. But god it's boring.

Wish I was more like Milan!

Check Tape
If Tape Full then Change Tape
If Tape Not Full then Wait
Repeat first Step.

MF I've always pictured you as the kind of guy who would just untie his horse and go

[HankWangford]

Surely you need a change tape subscriber that listens to change tape events from the change tape publisher?

It's pub/sub paradigm innit?

also need a change factory depending if your dealing with tapes or punch cards

[milanbenes]

fecks sake lads

are you contractors or what

coy paste innit

find some code, copy paste test and adjust

take the credit

sorteeeeeeeed

Milan.

[AtW]

I suppose I was wrong as "then Wait" would do what I suggested, that reset my no-post counter for no good reason at all

[bobhope]

Surely you need a change tape subscriber that listens to change tape events from the change tape publisher?

It's pub/sub paradigm innit?

[MarillionFan]

I think you have over-stretched yourself this time AtW.

This loop does not require a delay. You have forgotten that this is based on the Milan Benes Invoicing Machine Operating System.

This automatically has a 30 minute delay between actions, the only hogging of resource the MBIM O/S uses is the bathroom and coffee machine.

Now apologise.

[AtW]

Typical amateurs' mistake is have a loop as produced above by MF where a complete lack of delay will cause that piece of code to hog CPU or other resources: since he is not an old timer he does not really have an excuse that at the time of his youth (years that are long gone for good) computers were not multi-tasking so this crappy piece of code would do just fine, which is probably fair enough for DOS v1.0, but certainly not for modern OSes.

Now below is a better piece of code, but it still lacks key element, what is it?

Check Tape
If Tape Full then Change Tape
If Tape Not Full then Wait
Execute Delay of X Seconds
Repeat first Step.