The Basic Zone

Status : Beginner Tips   // Some Tips that Beginning Programmers might find useful

Everything listed below are things that will make your life as a programmer easeyer.

 Use some sort of variable identification method, so you know what kind of variable you are working with just by looking at it. I use the three letter prefix method. Wich means I start my variable ( and object ) names with a three letter combination specifiing the type of variable ( or object ). e.g. : int for integer ( intCount ) and btn for a button ( btnOK ).

 Use self-explaining variable, object and procedure names : 'btnOK' says much more then 'button1'. Also, use variables for reoccuring values ( constants ). sglVAT says much more then just 0.21 ( the VAT in Belgium ) and is also easeyer to adjust ( in this example : to increase ).

 Use indentation to make things clearer. e.g. :

If intTest = intStop then
   do this;
   do that
else
   do something else

 Use comments to structure your code, it will make things a lot more easy if you ( or somebody else ) need to change your code. In Delphi comments are put between { } or after //, in JavaScript, comments are put after // and finally, in Visual Basic you put comments after a single quotation mark : '.

Beginning Delphi Programmers : This stuf is for you :

 If you have a giant piece of code, put it into seperate units, this wil ease things a lot.

 Using the Document.Write, Document.WriteLn or Document.Clear method deletes the current Contents of the Page, this includes al your code ! You should avoid using these method's on you'r code page and instead open a new window for it. If you have to do it on your (main) code page, ad a link to the current page forcing the page to reload. eg :

<SCRIPT Language = JavaScript>
Document.write('Text apearing on the page<BR>')
Document.write('<A Href="ThisPage.html">Reload Page</a><BR>')
</SCRIPT>

 You can Use single and Double quotation marks interchangable in Javascript. This means that you can eather use : Document.write('then he said : "you are a programmer".') or Document.write("then he said : 'you are a good programmer'.")