Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!uh2
From: UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Control flow and common sense
Message-ID: <41445UH2@PSUVM>
Date: 4 May 88 13:17:15 GMT
References: <4605@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Organization: Penn Sate Erie--School of Business
Lines: 19

In article <4605@ihlpf.ATT.COM>, warren@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Montgomery) says:
>
>nested if-then-else's.  At the leaves of the if-then-elses were
>statements that did something and generally set variables tested by
>the if-then-elses, possibly also setting the loop condition.  The
>structure being implemented was actually a finite state machine, and
>fairly simple to understand as such, but impossible to discern from
>the style in which it was written.

   This is where "literate programming" should come in.  Perhaps
if the author had written a long comment that said something like,
"I've implemented a fsm using deeply nested if-then-elses.  At the
end of each if-then-else is a block of statements that do stuff, and
set the state variables for the next go around.  I could have uses
case stements but didn't because.  etc etc etc," then it wouldn't
have been necessary for you to "discern" the fsm from the structure of
the code.  Now, this also presumes a certain degree of expertise on the part
of the reade, who has to know what a fsm is, and how to program one.

                                                                 lee