[offtopic]I'm old :-)

General discussion for topics related to the FreeBASIC project or its community.
Boris the Old
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Joined: Feb 04, 2011 20:34
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by Boris the Old »

anonymous1337 wrote:It almost sounds like you're using Naked Objects, given the amount of code generation and that each table has its own dedicated editor.
On the other hand, it might just be that I'm a lazy programmer. :-)

When I first started programming it didn't take me long to realize that, no matter what the application, I was essentially writing the same program over and over. And in the same way that there are only about 10 plot lines for novels, there are about the same number of "plot lines" for computer programs. The other thing that I determined is that programming is an art, not a science, and that there's no magic bullet for writing good code. In fact, modern software, for all its theories and fancy tools, is just as crappy and bug-ridden as is was 50 years ago, and might even be worse.

My data dictionary package is just a tool for creating bug-free code according to the application specs. This means that I can put all my efforts into designing an application to suit a user's needs. Coding is just the mechanical process of converting my ideas into an equally abstract electronic form. And it's something that I'm not much interested in.
Merick
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Joined: May 28, 2007 1:52

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by Merick »

Any chance we could get you to give us a look at this data dictionary package of yours?
Lothar Schirm
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Location: Germany

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by Lothar Schirm »

Boris, that's very interesting indeed!
anonymous1337
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Location: California

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by anonymous1337 »

Boris the Old wrote:
anonymous1337 wrote:It almost sounds like you're using Naked Objects, given the amount of code generation and that each table has its own dedicated editor.
On the other hand, it might just be that I'm a lazy programmer. :-)
In a good way. Of course, everyone would be interested in "how you do it". I have such weird application requirements from my client, not only would that software have to be good, I'd have to get really good at using it and change my mindset entirely to meet the design and UX requirements of my current clients.

Or at least I think I would. I could be wrong. But right now the user could request a new workflow, entirely unrelated to adding new data or modifying existing data. Lots of UI programming for me, these days.
Boris the Old
Posts: 139
Joined: Feb 04, 2011 20:34
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by Boris the Old »

Merick wrote:Any chance we could get you to give us a look at this data dictionary package of yours?
No.
anonymous1337 wrote:Of course, everyone would be interested in "how you do it".
a) I spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of the applications that I write.
b) I spent a lot of time thinking about how I might automate the creation of code.
c) I spent a lot of time creating an application to accomplish this.

Implementation is left as an exercise for the reader.
TJF
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Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by TJF »

@ Boris the Old

you're lucky that you can use just one data dictionary for all your code. My daily work isn't that simple, and I developed several code generating tools for different purposes. Ie.
  • GladeToBac generates code for GUI designs
  • GirToBac generates FB headers for GObject Introspection libraries
  • h_2_bi generates FB headers from C source
Last week I made a tool to create and compile device tree overlays.

IMHO auto-generating code is a standard method and I've no problems to share the sources.
Boris the Old
Posts: 139
Joined: Feb 04, 2011 20:34
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by Boris the Old »

TJF wrote:IMHO auto-generating code is a standard method and I've no problems to share the sources.
I agree and would normally have no problem with sharing simple utility programs like GladeToBac. However, in the case of our Data Dictionary package I have two concerns.

Firstly, it has evolved over 40 years to become a critical part of our operations. It gives us a competative edge and I'm not inclined to make its details public.

Secondly, it's more than just a simple utility, as might be infered by it having 700K+ lines of code. To make any sense of it one needs to see it in its entirety, so it's not a practical exercise to attempt an explanation on these forums with a few code samples. The best I can do is explain some concepts and give some trivial examples of generated code.

As I said above, there's no magic bullet. Our package is designed to generate code that suits our needs and it probably wouldn't suit everyone. However, the concepts are valid and can easily be applied to other situations.

Remember, it's taken me 40+ years to reach this degree of automation, but it's still not the way I'd like to see it.

I refuse to die before it's complete. :-)
squibit
Posts: 16
Joined: Jan 16, 2006 19:44

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by squibit »

84 years old here
stylin
Posts: 1253
Joined: Nov 06, 2005 5:19

Re: [offtopic]I'm old :-)

Post by stylin »

Happy belated half-century D.J.Peters :)
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