A89: Re: Re: A Address book With Some Real Problems
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A89: Re: Re: A Address book With Some Real Problems
A little drunk, aren't you? I don't know who pissed you off, but it sure
wasn't Rob...
-Miles Raymond EML: m_rayman@bigfoot.com
AIM: kilier2 ICQ: 13217756 IRC: Killer2
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_rayman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Noveck" <noveck@pluto.njcc.com>
To: <assembly-89@lists.ticalc.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2000 5:12 AM
Subject: A89: Re: A Address book With Some Real Problems
> Oh boy, this is gonna be fun. It's 5:30 AM and I can't resist:
>
> > ok, i am trying to get a address book written in c for the calc,
>
> Really? Strange, judging by that source I would have thought you've
written
> a LISP interpreter. How would I have ever known that this is C source
> without that helpful little bit?
>
> > but my
> > main problem right now is that i can not get the request dialogs working
> > right, what am i doing wrong?
>
> Among other things, you are doing all of the following wrong:
>
> (1) Sending five messages to this list within one hour, four of which are
> one-liners, two of which are completely incoherent ("muti [sic] request
> dialogs in one dialog"?), and all of which have an relatively long 7-line
> signature which is really killing your signal-to-noise ratio.
>
> (2) Your spelling and grammar are being "done wrong," thus also
implicating
> your proofreading of the same felonies. Out of the four aforementioned
> one-lined messages, all four lack any capitalization at all, there are
four
> spelling errors (two of which are present in two messages, and one of
which
> is in a subject line), and this message I am replying to lacks any
> consistent capitalization scheme (both in the subject and body), and I
won't
> even comment on your poor selection of "a" as the article preceeding a
> subject that begins with the same vowel.
>
> I won't harp on the content of the messages refering to hooking the on
> button, since they at least made a little sense if you thought about them
a
> bit. But no, int 6 is not run when pressing the on button to turn on the
> calc, IIRC.
>
> And if the originator of that thread is still reading this, it IS possible
> to hook into turning the calc on via replacing the event manager, although
> due to a glaring mistake in the TI-GCC documentation, you're not gonna be
> able to figure out how to do it yourself (Zeljko: one of your event
> descriptions is completely wrong, giving you two events with similar
> effects, one of which is completely wrong. But you're probably not even
> going to find it with that hint). I'm sorry, but I just can't reveal
> anymore. But it's nice to see that Zeljko is human =)
>
> To Zeljko again: actually, several of those are wrong. But some are
> "wronger" than others =)
>
> Now, onto the code:
>
> (3) There are no function prototypes in this code. I've seen some 4 new C
> programmers in the last week, none of whom use prototypes! I don't know
> who's writing your C tutorials these days, but they're either completely
and
> utterly incompetent themselves, or having a good laugh at newbies writing
> sloppy excuses for code. Go research and use function prototyping, and
use
> names in your prototypes - not just types. This prevents many errors,
both
> from human mistakes which are not detected by "double-checking" and when
the
> compiler is forced to make an assumption about the types of the values
that
> it is pushing onto the stack when calling.
>
> Will more experienced C coders please back me up on the importance of
> prototypes? It seems certain new programmers who I've told to use
> prototypes grumpily added them, but don't believe me when I state their
> importance.
>
> (4) > char static FName [100] [15]={{0}};
>
> The static modifier should occur before the type (char), not after. This
is
> a fundamental of the C syntax and no code doing it as you are will ever
> compile. Please do not send messages to this list with invalid code -
make
> an effort to correct some of these innumerable errors before asking for
> help, especially ones that will be picked up by the compiler (syntax
errors
> rather than logic errors) - you should not have nearly this much code when
> it likely never even compiled on the first build.
>
> (5) Most of your variables do not need to be globals. In fact, not only
is
> it not necessary, but it's not even helpful - IMHO, it's a waste. All of
> the b* variables, for instance, should be defined at the start of the
editen
> function - not with the globals.
>
> (6) > strncat (buffer, b1, 15);
>
> Since buffer is a null byte, and we're merely appending onto the end of
it,
> the string will still not be read beyond the first (null) byte. In other
> words, attempting to display the resulting string will display nothing.
>
> (7) > DialogAddRequest (handle, 3, 13, "First Name:", 6, 15, 10);
>
> "Magic numbers" - that is, hardcoded constants - are bad. Try to replace
> some of these numbers with symbolic constants; that is, #define'd values,
> like the occurance of "CENTER" in the call to DialogDo.
>
> (8) > return 0;
>
> Why are all of your functions returning unused values?!? Only your main
> needs to be declared as an int here; the rest of your functions should be
> declared as returning void. Once again, learn your fundamental C before
> asking for help.
>
> (9) > while(result!=0&&result!=9)
>
> Were you to fix up your syntax errors so that the code will actually run,
> you'd see that result will never be see to either of those values when
> encountering this pretest, and thus the loop is infinite.
>
> > Also, how can i disable the help messages when i call a dialog, ie i
want
> > to disp my own instead of the use the arrow keys and enter or esc stuff.
> > Any help would be welcomed.
>
> Use a callback routine. I'm not sure how much of that has been
documented,
> so I'll leave that to Zelkjo to answer if he so chooses in order to avoid
> saying anything I shouldn't. But you shouldn't even be THINKING about
doing
> this yet.
>
> > Stupidity got us into this mess - why can't it get us out?
>
> A fitting quote, might I add (and one of my favorites =)
>
> Pat, Scott, Zeljko, et al: Go ahead, shoot me down. I dare ya. Fix any
> glaring oversights and misinformation, and feel free to be as rude and
frank
> about it as you desire. It's the best way to learn =)
>
> -Scott
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