Coding Efficiency

[TerryRitchie]

You know I always want write clean, efficent code, but my muddled brain always ends making thing way more complicated and I feature creep.

I start out thinking about doing this:

Code: (Select All)

FUNCTION GetMonth$(month)
    SELECT CASE month
        CASE 1: GetMonth$ = "January"
...
END FUNCTION

I end up doing this.

Code: (Select All)

month$ = "JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember."
DO
INPUT "Input a number between 1 and 12"; n%
i% = 1: m$ = "": DO
  n% = n% + (INSTR("JFMASOND.", MID$(month$, i%, 1)) > 0)
  m$ = _TRIM$(m$ + CHR$((ASC(MID$(month$, i%, 1)) * -(n% = 0)) + (32 * -(n% <> 0))))
i% = i% + 1: LOOP WHILE i% < LEN(month$) AND n% >= 0
PRINT m$
LOOP

LOL, that's a perfect example of the "clever" code I spoke of earlier. It's beautiful code in its own strange way but come back to it a year later and it looks like an alien took a dump in the source, especially if every single stage of it is not documented well.

Please don't think I'm making fun of your code. Just a perfect example of how some of our "feature creepy" minds work.