From: "Judson McClendon" <judmc123 AT bellsouth DOT net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp,alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++,alt.lang.basic
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Subject: Re: A small bussiness billing application
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Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 09:02:34 -0500
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Michael Mattias wrote:
>First, I hope you realize the "bigot" comment was jocular. I've seen a lot
>of your BASIC code and it's some pretty good stuff.

Sure, I didn't take any offense.  You write good stuff, yourself.

>Second, there's no reason using long integers and doing stuff in pennies
>must perforce result in slow bloatware.

I agree.  I was talking about the fact that when you calculate something
like  A = B * (C + D / E) using integer math to represent non-integer
decimal values, you had better think it through very carefully, or you
will likely encounter scaling, rounding and/or truncation problems.  That
makes using self-scaled integers not only much more time consuming (for
the programmer), but far more error prone as well.

>The long integer is but a tool, and as we all know, it's not the paintbrush,
>it's the artist.

I agree.  But the artist is better off with better tools, no? :-)

>Third, given a financial application (which I really not do many of), with
>both BASIC and COBOL available, I'd do it in COBOL, unless I had a lot a
>string-handling to do, in which case I'd do it in BASIC. In the latter case,
>I'd look real hard for a way to do the string work in BASIC and the numeric
>stuff (especially the formatting of screens and reports) in COBOL.

Sounds like we are in agreement. :-)
--
Judson McClendon      judmc123 AT bellsouth DOT net  (remove numbers)
Sun Valley Systems    http://personal.bhm.bellsouth.net/~judmc
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."