[Tutor] Useing Functions

[Jeff Shannon]

Chad Crabtree wrote:

> Use Functions.  Very Very Important, it's the product of millions of 
> years of evolution.  So yes use functions.

At work, I do a lot of programming in a very old dialect of Basic that 
doesn't *have* proper functions, or any concept of variable scope. 
(You can create "external subroutines", a separate program file that 
acts as a function, and which can only return values through the use 
of its (by-reference) parameters, but that's fairly awkward.)

After years of working in an environment where a longish program is 
loaded with gotos, gosubs, and page after page of deeply nested 
if/then/else statements...  Trust me, you *want* to use functions as 
much as practical.  Oh, how I wish I could use functions here!  (Let's 
be honest, I wish I could use Python instead of Basic, but somehow I 
don't expect a port of Python to the Pick database virtual OS anytime 
soon... :P )

Anyhow, yes.  Functions good.  OO and classes even better.  Use them 
and appreciate them, for life without them is ugly and scary.

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International