By the time I post this story it will be long in the past. I was called in to help another programmer. His code was a semblance of the first set of code. Every time DO X ran with something that did not work, the rest of the program was not run, it failed.
Bad:
[code]
SET Z = $1
FOR i in X Y
DO X
sometimes this works, if it doesn’t fail badly
END DO
DO Y
IF Z == TEST1
do something
END DO
[/code]
This was his re-write, better, but not good. Do you see the difference? At least this time everything else in the program is run first, then the program runs the failing code every time, regardless.
[code]
SET Z = $1
FOR i in X Y
DO Y
IF Z == TEST1
do something
END DO
DO X
sometimes this works, if it doesn’t fail badly
END DO
[/code]
Under the circumstances the best option. This section that fails will only run if everything has not triggered.
[code]
SET Z = $1
FOR i in Y
DO Y
IF Z == TEST1
do something
ELSIF Z == TEST2
do something else
ELSE
sometimes this works, if it doesn’t fail badly
END DO
[/code]
If you recognize the difference in this logic I commend you, my co-worker did not and put it into production. It’s the small logic puzzles that we should enjoy.
