[H-GEN] Which is better?

[Andrae Muys]

Harry Phillips wrote:

> 
> <snip lots of stuff that went right over my head>
> 

Ahh that's unfortunate.  I'll try to do better this time.

Consider the lifecycle of a piece of code.

You interact with a line of code in one of 6 different ways

1) You write it

2) You debug it

3) You edit it

4) You test it

5) You optimise it

6) You maintain it

Now consider how many times each interaction occurs during the codes 
lifetime

Writing happens once.

Studies indicate that debugging, editing, and maintaining occur >10 times.

Optimisation occurs only rarely for that 1-2% of the code that ends up 
being a bottleneck.

Testing should occur at least as many times as debugging + 1.

So if you want to be productive, you want to make your code as readable 
as possible.  You will only write the code once, but you (and others) 
will be reading the code many many times.

The code examples I gave you indended to start you thinking about what 
qualities of code help make it readable.

You asked for help, well learning this lesson a good 5-7 years ahead of 
most of your peers is the best help I could think of.

Good luck.

Andrae