When you're dealing with small integers that stand for themselves, theres neither benfit nor harm for making them named constants. It's "magic numbers" that you need to avoid, e.g., approximations, exchange rates.
-- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3 ________________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of Bob Bridges <robhbrid...@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, September 5, 2020 4:21 PM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Constant Identifiers Going back to the beginning, Gil: SQRT(X**TWO+Y**TWO) looks like ~exactly~ the sort of thing that oughta be made a constant rather than being coded more than once. That is, if X, Y and TWO all constants themselves; and if they are not then this isn't an example of what you're talking about. Did you accidentally reverse your meaning? Or what am I missing? --- Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313 /* Anarchy might be great, if only it could be enforced. -Joseph Sobran, 2001-03-27 */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin Sent: Friday, September 4, 2020 11:44 I'm a PL/I novice, or less. A recent thread here moved me to browse the Ref., where I read that any constant used more than once must be declared and the identifier used instead. Sorta tyrannical enforcement of coding conventions. OK. I agree that 6.62607015e−34 shouldn't be hard-coded more than once. But SQRT( X**TWO + Y**TWO )? Ugh! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
