RE: What are the benefits of ILE?

[Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I guess my question sparked more debate than I really intended....

Not at all - I fly off the handle at most any opportunity!  <big stupid
grin>  

>What I was looking for is when do you decide something 
>is right for a subprocedure 

Steve McConnell's "Code Complete"  (Microsoft Press) says:
o Reducing complexity
o Avoiding duplicate code
o Limiting effects of changes
o Hiding "sequences" (grouping sequence-critical operations)
o Improving performance
o Making central points of control
o Hiding data structures
o Hiding global data
o Hiding pointer operations
o Promoting code reuse
o Isolating "customer specific" code
o Making a section of code readable
o Improving portability
o Isolating complex operations
o Isolating use of nonstandard language functions
o Simplifying complex boolean tests

Make each of your subprocedures do ONE thing, and do it well.  Your payroll
example had "...list for payroll personnel of who is going to be paid, how
much and so on...".  A reasonable name for such a subprocedure would be
listPersonnelCalculatePayCalculateTaxesEtc.  It would probably have lots of
parameters, and do lots of things.  Better would be several smaller
subprocedures: listPersonnel, calculatePay, calculateTaxes.  Keep going
until the names are truly self-descriptive, and the procedures do one thing.
Then (as Scott advised) you can assemble the small, single function
procedures into larger units.

>My main focus is that the higher ups are talking 
>about doing a rewrite of our system.....
>Most of the code is old (many of the dates in seu 
>are 87 88), no use of copy books, no vendor
>software (all in house).

Paul Tuohy's "Re-Engineering RPG Legacy Applications" (Midrange Computing
Press) goes over this ground quite well.  You can probably get it from
David's site at http://www.midrange.com

Buck 
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