[Info-vax] BASIC (and Horizon)

[bill]

On 1/30/2024 12:14 PM, Chris Townley wrote:
> On 30/01/2024 16:45, bill wrote:
>> On 1/29/2024 7:50 PM, kludge at panix.com wrote:
>>> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=C3=B8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>> The code is VB6.
>>>>
>>>> But none of the problems are Basic specific. It is possible
>>>> to write the same bad code in C or Fortran or whatever.
>>>>
>>>> So it just shows that there are some really really bad programmers out
>>>> there.
>>>
>>> I have worked with people who could write spaghetti Fortran in any
>>> programming language available.  Did you know that LISP has a goto?
>>> It does.
>>>
>>>> PS: Good compilers may have detected the unreachable code. But it
>>>>      is still good vs bad compiler not good vs bad language.
>>>
>>> The exciting part is when they tell you not to remove the unreachable 
>>> code,
>>> because the program crashes at runtime when you do that.
>>
>> Many moons ago I had to try to fix a number of programs that
>> crashed whenever run.  Back in those days a common method was
>> to add statements to display variables during execution.  I
>> had many cases where adding those statements made the program
>> work.
>>
>> bill
> 
> Could it have been the variables were being incorrectly being optimised 
> out, but adding a print statement would avoid that. I have seen that a 
> few times
> 

Usually it had to do with out of range access.  Adding the displays
enlarged the I Area changing the location being accessed.  Didn't
fix the program but made it run enough to troubleshoot once you knew
what the problem probably was.

bill