Lance, what do you think of...

[mark smit]

Lance,

What do you think of the following additions to PBDLL...

1. reimpliment SHARED variables to combat GLOBAL worries. What I mean is bring the SHARED idea from PBDOS to PBDLL. Each sub or function that contains the same named variables followed by the key word SHARED will share the same memory address. (hope that makes sense).

2. Extend DDT to allow sub classing of windows messages. This would allow the programmer to break up the windows proc. into smaller chunks. here is an example...

callback function OnInitDialog as long
  rem in here we can use all the DDT variables
  rem CBMSG,CBCTL,CBCTLMSG,CBWPARAM,CBLPARAM, etc...
end function

callback function OnDestroy as long
  rem in here we can use all the DDT variables
  rem CBMSG,CBCTL,CBCTLMSG,CBWPARAM,CBLPARAM, etc...
end function

callback function DlgProc as long
  select case cbmsg
    case %WM_INITDIALOG call OnInitDialog
    case %WM_DESTROY call OnDestroy
  end select
end function

3. Do you think that my other suggestion for "CONTROL SET|GET INT" will be included in the current release fixes if any? or will this be a "NEW FEATURE" for PBDLL7?



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Cheers

[Troy King]

Mark, those are some good ideas. If or until they make it into the language, you can do some "faking it" on your #2 by having each message in a WndProc call other routines, like PowerGen does. Pass the values of CBMSG, etc to the other routine, and you can have it separated off to its own little chunk of code rather than part of a giant SELECT CASE in your own WndProc. Just a thought...

As to getting Lance (or any other PB folks) to admit to what features will or won't make it into the next version, all I can say is GOOD LUCK &gt . Tell us your secret when you get them to do it <grin>.

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Troy King
[email protected]

[Gregery D Engle]

I really like that #1 idea. I have never thought of such an idea before but thinking about it I have come up hundreds of times when I only want two or three functions using the same variable and instead of making it global you could just do that... Great IDEA!

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-Greg

[Tom Hanlin]

I have my doubts about SHARED values. They're nothing more than a way of having one SUB or FUNCTION cause side-effects in another, which is considered a really bad programming practice. Most modern programming languages are expressly designed to avoid such capabilities, aside from the sanctioned (though discouraged) use of GLOBAL values. I'm not going to go into detail about the whys and wherefores. Let's just say that it makes programs harder to understand and to maintain.

Extensions for subclassing is an interesting idea.

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff