forums.silverfrost.com

[DanRRight]

SDBG has nice feature showing variable value in tiny popup screen when you point on variable with the mouse. Would be great to add the same feature when you point on ENDIFs and ENDDOs. Something like here (on this static image shown all popups at the same time but of course only one will be seen in reality)



That will help us not to be lost in the spaghetti codes

[PaulLaidler]

I would often write this as !comment in the code.
Also, don't forget that constructs can be named in Fortran 90.

[DanRRight]

I also do comment enddos and endifs. But I started doing this just recently after hundreds of thousands of lines of codes when the mess became unbearable . Because nobody teaches good coding practices so my $10 bet is that most people don't do that. And naming is way too rarely used, and is known and much less used only by very advanced coders.

[LitusSaxonicum]

Dan,

When I was programming in Algol-60, back in the 1960s, the use of indenting was essential, and I spent many hours drawing links between the start of a loop and its end using different coloured pens. Can I help by sending you a set, along with a long ruler, down to the South Pole? Can you still get your source codes printed on music-ruled fan-fold paper on a line printer?

At least with traditional Fortran DO loops one automatically gets a connection between the DO statement and the final CONTINUE statement through the statement number of the latter, which in fixed-format source codes is an 'outdent'. It slowly dawned on me that what I had seen as a primitive defect was actually a helpful construct.

But sadly, the past is a foreign country where they do things differently (or so said H. E. Bates in 'The Go Between'). Don't believe people who say the past (or indeed, the primitive) was always worse!

Eddie

[DanRRight]

Eddie, oh yeah, the indentation is simply a must, I completely forgotten mentioning it, because it is so natural that you don't even notice it. You are dead without it in large codes. As to coloring - here is where I don't have opinion. I tried to convince my editor developer 20 years ago to implement coloring because almost all do that but he refused... I think Plato also has it but I use batch files to compile instead. As a result I have no clue if it actually helps or distracts. What is your opinion?

[JohnCampbell]

Hi Dan,

Plato does have colouring, although the colours don't contrast a lot. I'm sure I could change the colour palette.

To keep track of nested or long DO loops I have always suggested using the DO variable as an alternate DO label, but few have given that support. The alternative I often use is END DO ! DO_variable, eg

[LitusSaxonicum]

John,

It is intriguing that the content of your do loop is one step further indented than the start and finish. Wouldn't:

[mecej4]

[LitusSaxonicum]

Mecej4,

It doesn't work for me. I prefer no indent at all, blank lines, CONTINUE and statement numbers. It's the 'the way nature intended' as I see it (quote misused from the Silverfrost top page) ;-).

If I had to use indents, then I'm sure that I would find having the content indented differently obfuscated the connection between the beginning, content, and end.

But then I don't indent loops, not since ALGOL days, and they ended, abruptly, in 1970 ! My recollection was that they were indented rather like John's layout, but the interior code began with "BEGIN" and ended with "END" which made it a sort of logical block.

Eddie

[John-Silver]

it's useful to see various options side-by-side .....

I've added a few lines to indicate where some extra code might be in order to illustrate better.

Which one would you vote for ?

[John-Silver]

then there's this possibility, with more continuous, neater (?) 'loop lines' but with the drawback that the '!'s on blank lines are still required within the loops

[John-Silver]

of course, for F77 the latter 2 options are not practical (due to chars per line limit (sorry Eddie ! but for F90 and its 132 char lines , highly possible, providing you have the patience !

[LitusSaxonicum]

I wouldn't indent, but then I'd have statement numbers. They are an 'outdent', akin to a tab on the left. Then it's obvious where the loop ends.

The need for wider layouts is due to longer names and indents. Neither are essential.

Just saying.

Eddie

[John-Silver]

I liked your comment about drawing the links on lineprinter paper to mark the loops Eddie, it brought back memories that did so I pottered with some examples (the ones above).
The problem with the multi- pen/pencil approach is that it needs to be regularly re-done !
I hadn't actually thought of doing it as I tried above until this post. I may adopt as standard from now on.

At the end of the day it's personal preference (as it should be) but as Dan might say, all the better reason to give all the options !

I also usually differentiate routines , functions , modules etc with lines including a symbol (typically a '*' as this helps quickly locate code blocks too.

The trouble is, I find it difficult to be consistent and thorough when applying all these things, as I'm sure most people do, due to time restraints ... but then again time well spent at the beginning is years saved when a gremlin is found and needs investigation.

[DanRRight]