| Alistair 2007-08-01, 7:55 am |
| On 31 Jul, 03:38, LX-i <lxi0...@netscape.net> wrote:
> Pete Dashwood wrote:
>
> My first experience with the ALTER verb was our shop standards when I
> first got there. "The use of ALTER is strictly forbidden." :) I
> wondered what it did, but didn't bother looking it up at that point.
>
> Later on in my time there, I looked it up - and shuddered. IMO, it's an
> absolutely horrendous construct. It seems to me that if ALTER is the
> answer, the question must not have been phrased correctly. :) I
> understand its use, and the problems that it was supposed to get around
> largely don't exist any more.
>
There was nothing wrong with ALTER at the time (it did what it said on
the tin, as we say in the UK). It was great for first-time processing
of data but did make the program more difficult to debug in a crash.
Now, if you don't like ALTER then self-modifying IBM Assembler code
would definitely give you nightmares.
|