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Style Guide / Best Practices
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| gmgauthi@gmail.com 2005-09-14, 7:01 pm |
| Hello,
I've been a rexx programmer for about 10 years now, and there's one
thing that's always frustrated me about this language: No "best
practices" or "style guide" documentation.
Now, I am in the process of putting together a document laying out the
"accepted coding practices" for the coding team I work on. We are an
EXTREMELY casual shop, and currently, we have NO common practices at
all.
I do want to avoid turning this effort into a holy war over nominal
details like 'Does "Do" go at the end of the current line, or does it
go indented at the start of the next line?'. However, without some
authoritative reference to point to, this group is *not* going to
easily adopt ANY standard ("Who made you 'king of the coders'?").
Can anyone point to a guide on the Internet, or a book I can buy, that
has some well-defined coding practice, or "style guide" type
recommendations?
Thanks,
Greg.
| |
| Lee Peedin 2005-09-14, 9:57 pm |
| And while you're at it, you might try to get everybody to use the same
editor as well. Na - don't do that, you seem like a nice guy and it'd
be bad to hear of your sudden demise. :-)
Several years ago Mr. Les Koehler made a presentation at one of the
RexxLA Symposiums on code style. He also did one on "what constitues
a line of code".
Now you have to remember that Les has been around longer than dirt and
all his presentations were done on foils, so I have no idea if he has
them available in a digital form.
I'll drop him an email and have him check out this post.
Lee Peedin
VP RexxLA
On 14 Sep 2005 15:07:28 -0700, "gmgauthi@gmail.com"
<gmgauthi@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I've been a rexx programmer for about 10 years now, and there's one
>thing that's always frustrated me about this language: No "best
>practices" or "style guide" documentation.
>
>Now, I am in the process of putting together a document laying out the
>"accepted coding practices" for the coding team I work on. We are an
>EXTREMELY casual shop, and currently, we have NO common practices at
>all.
>
>I do want to avoid turning this effort into a holy war over nominal
>details like 'Does "Do" go at the end of the current line, or does it
>go indented at the start of the next line?'. However, without some
>authoritative reference to point to, this group is *not* going to
>easily adopt ANY standard ("Who made you 'king of the coders'?").
>
>Can anyone point to a guide on the Internet, or a book I can buy, that
>has some well-defined coding practice, or "style guide" type
>recommendations?
>
>Thanks,
>Greg.
| |
|
| gmgauthi@gmail.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've been a rexx programmer for about 10 years now, and there's one
> thing that's always frustrated me about this language: No "best
> practices" or "style guide" documentation.
>
> Now, I am in the process of putting together a document laying out the
> "accepted coding practices" for the coding team I work on. We are an
> EXTREMELY casual shop, and currently, we have NO common practices at
> all.
>
> I do want to avoid turning this effort into a holy war over nominal
> details like 'Does "Do" go at the end of the current line, or does it
> go indented at the start of the next line?'. However, without some
> authoritative reference to point to, this group is *not* going to
> easily adopt ANY standard ("Who made you 'king of the coders'?").
>
> Can anyone point to a guide on the Internet, or a book I can buy, that
> has some well-defined coding practice, or "style guide" type
> recommendations?
>
> Thanks,
> Greg.
>
I'd suggest that the first thing to do would be to obtain the team's
agreement that adopting a common style of coding would be a worthwhile
effort. Unless the team buys into the idea, it won't happen. Spell out
all the advantages you see in doing it, and solicit more reasons for why
it will pay off from the team.
If the document becomes a team effort, with everyone contributing to it
in some way, your odds of succcess will increase too.
Good luck,
Ian
| |
| Sahananda 2005-09-15, 7:57 am |
| Hi Greg,
I'd agree with what Ian said, but just mention, when I code in rexx I
generally write in Kedit using the syntax expansion macros I wrote some time
ago (Rexpand.kml which is freely available at www.sahananda.fwbo.net/rexx )
.. This gives a consistency to the way that I code. I also set colmark at
80 & right align my comments to it. I use another macro (stamp.kex) to put
revision marks left aligned to column 80.
This gives me a certain consistency of style and means that I can largely
forget about it.
As I imagine is the case for most coders, I find my code easier to
understand than other peoples, and as the tools make it such little effort
to maintain that suits me.
If you were Kedit users, I would be happy if you took those tools and
adapted them to whatever style you & your team wanted. I didn't invent the
style that rexpand adopts, I copied it from the syntax expansion facilities
provided with the IBM 'E' editor which was bundled with Dos 7.
I hope that is of some help
Jon
| |
| Bruce Uttley 2005-09-15, 7:01 pm |
| In article <1126735647.983335.17640@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
gmgauthi@gmail.com <gmgauthi@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ...
>Can anyone point to a guide on the Internet, or a book I can buy, that
>has some well-defined coding practice, or "style guide" type
>recommendations?
>
>Thanks,
>Greg.
The recent "REXX Programmer's Reference" book by Howard Fosdick has
a chapter on "Rexx with Style". The suggestions and alternatives
covered in this chapter will you ideas, even if you don't adopt his
recommendations verbatim.
The chapter covers: Capitalization, Good variable names, Spacing
& indentation, Limit nesting, Comments, Modularity, Structured
Code, Error checking and Etcetera!
| |
| Mickey 2005-09-15, 7:01 pm |
|
Lee Peedin wrote:
> And while you're at it, you might try to get everybody to use the same
> editor as well. Na - don't do that, you seem like a nice guy and it'd
> be bad to hear of your sudden demise. :-)
>
> Several years ago Mr. Les Koehler made a presentation at one of the
> RexxLA Symposiums on code style. He also did one on "what constitues
> a line of code".
>
> Now you have to remember that Les has been around longer than dirt and
> all his presentations were done on foils, so I have no idea if he has
> them available in a digital form.
>
> I'll drop him an email and have him check out this post.
>
Is he still at the Buffalo Ave location, in Tampa, or has he moved
elsewhere? I worked with Les on the Mail Exchange process many years
back.
Mickey
| |
| gmgauthi@gmail.com 2005-09-15, 7:01 pm |
| This looks like a great book! I'll give it a look.
Thanks!
Greg.
| |
| gmgauthi@gmail.com 2005-09-15, 7:01 pm |
| Actually, the editor happened by default. On z/OS, all our company has
been willing to pay for is ISPF.On Windows, we've been pressed into
UltraEdit - again a corporate purchasing decision.
| |
| Frank Clarke 2005-09-15, 7:01 pm |
| On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 21:46:37 -0400, ian <ian.not@cox.net> wrote:
<4o4We.8111$nq.4547@lakeread05>
>I'd suggest that the first thing to do would be to obtain the team's
>agreement that adopting a common style of coding would be a worthwhile
>effort. Unless the team buys into the idea, it won't happen. Spell out
>all the advantages you see in doing it, and solicit more reasons for why
>it will pay off from the team.
>
>If the document becomes a team effort, with everyone contributing to it
>in some way, your odds of succcess will increase too.
....and getting people to do the right thing is lots easier if "doing the right
thing" is also "the path of least resistance". Nothing beats a great set of
macros. Enable the agreed-upon conventions to be implemented with a few
keystrokes and you're home free. At one major client we could load the basic
skeleton with a 2-byte macro, insert the author's name and the date with a
2-byte macro, build an internal subroutine with a single PFkey. Looking at the
resulting code, you might think one person had written the entire library...
(change Arabic number to Roman numeral to email)
| |
| Wolfgang Riedel 2005-09-16, 3:57 am |
| "gmgauthi@gmail.com" wrote:
>
> Actually, the editor happened by default. On z/OS, all our company has
> been willing to pay for is ISPF.On Windows, we've been pressed into
> UltraEdit - again a corporate purchasing decision.
If you use ultraedit for rexx, have you included
ftp://ultraedit.com/wf/rexx.txt
into wordfile.txt for syntax support?
I have added:
/Function String = "^(%[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]++^):"
in the line under /Delimiters.
Quite handy.
Wolfgang
| |
| Lee Peedin 2005-09-16, 6:59 pm |
| Yes, that's the same Les, but he is retired now - still "living" in
the Tampa area.
Lee
On 15 Sep 2005 11:12:06 -0700, "Mickey" <mickeyb@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>Lee Peedin wrote:
>
>Is he still at the Buffalo Ave location, in Tampa, or has he moved
>elsewhere? I worked with Les on the Mail Exchange process many years
>back.
>
>Mickey
| |
| Frank Clarke 2005-09-17, 7:01 pm |
| On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:53:07 GMT, Lee Peedin <lpeedinREMOVE@UPPERCASEnc.rr.com>
wrote:
<gjjli1hr48n4gu6b5et2tfcp2bvdeeeb4p@4ax.com>
>Yes, that's the same Les, but he is retired now - still "living" in
>the Tampa area.
'Living' in quotes? Reminds me of a scene from Bye Bye Birdie:
Mother (upstairs calling downstairs): "Judy, are you down there?"
Judy: "Bob and I are down here in the loving room, Mother."
Mother (correcting Judy): "That's 'living', dear."
Judy: "You can say that again..."
Les is, indeed, living in the Tampa FL area as are all who reside on Florida's
SunCoast. That's living...
(change Arabic number to Roman numeral to email)
| |
| Mickey 2005-09-19, 6:59 pm |
|
Frank Clarke wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:53:07 GMT, Lee Peedin <lpeedinREMOVE@UPPERCASEnc.rr.com>
> wrote:
> <gjjli1hr48n4gu6b5et2tfcp2bvdeeeb4p@4ax.com>
>
>
> 'Living' in quotes? Reminds me of a scene from Bye Bye Birdie:
>
> Mother (upstairs calling downstairs): "Judy, are you down there?"
>
> Judy: "Bob and I are down here in the loving room, Mother."
>
> Mother (correcting Judy): "That's 'living', dear."
>
> Judy: "You can say that again..."
>
> Les is, indeed, living in the Tampa FL area as are all who reside on Florida's
> SunCoast. That's living...
I am just down the road from him, in Sarasota, when I am actually
there. Currentlty, I am winding up a contract in Detroit for Ford, and
then heading for Georgetown to do some CA work. Ah yes, doing mortal
combat with Endevor, always a joy ;)
Mickey
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