Mail Archives: djgpp/1999/07/26/10:30:35
Michael Mattias wrote:
>First, I hope you realize the "bigot" comment was jocular. I've seen a lot
>of your BASIC code and it's some pretty good stuff.
Sure, I didn't take any offense. You write good stuff, yourself.
>Second, there's no reason using long integers and doing stuff in pennies
>must perforce result in slow bloatware.
I agree. I was talking about the fact that when you calculate something
like A = B * (C + D / E) using integer math to represent non-integer
decimal values, you had better think it through very carefully, or you
will likely encounter scaling, rounding and/or truncation problems. That
makes using self-scaled integers not only much more time consuming (for
the programmer), but far more error prone as well.
>The long integer is but a tool, and as we all know, it's not the paintbrush,
>it's the artist.
I agree. But the artist is better off with better tools, no? :-)
>Third, given a financial application (which I really not do many of), with
>both BASIC and COBOL available, I'd do it in COBOL, unless I had a lot a
>string-handling to do, in which case I'd do it in BASIC. In the latter case,
>I'd look real hard for a way to do the string work in BASIC and the numeric
>stuff (especially the formatting of screens and reports) in COBOL.
Sounds like we are in agreement. :-)
--
Judson McClendon judmc123 AT bellsouth DOT net (remove numbers)
Sun Valley Systems http://personal.bhm.bellsouth.net/~judmc
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
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