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  3. Do you even 'break' bro?!

Do you even 'break' bro?!

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  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

    You're forgetting the old maxim: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" There is nowhere where this is more apposite than in university computer education. :sigh: If you wish proof of this, just visit QA...:suss: (My apologies to any good teachers out there: you do know you are in a teeny, tiny minority, right?)

    The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

    J Offline
    J Offline
    jim lahey
    wrote on last edited by
    #9

    Had I listened to college and university tutors in in 2001 I'd have learnt COBOL as "nothing is as good for manipulating text files".

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    • D DominicZA

      So...I havent been on here in a while, but I cant seem to find the wall of shame so I thought here would do :P While going through our current framework I came across a module written by one of our senior devs, who apparently doesnt know what a break is, here is an example of what he does :

      for (var i = 0;i < myArray.length; i++) {
      if (conditionIsMet) {
      i = myArray.length;
      }
      }

      I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe he was using i somewhere else, but he wasn't. Anyways, just a little laugh...Has anyone else found any gems like this??

      -- Dom

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      PIEBALDconsult
      wrote on last edited by
      #10

      I prefer to avoid a break in a for loop, but that's the worst way to do it. :sigh:

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      • D DominicZA

        So...I havent been on here in a while, but I cant seem to find the wall of shame so I thought here would do :P While going through our current framework I came across a module written by one of our senior devs, who apparently doesnt know what a break is, here is an example of what he does :

        for (var i = 0;i < myArray.length; i++) {
        if (conditionIsMet) {
        i = myArray.length;
        }
        }

        I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe he was using i somewhere else, but he wasn't. Anyways, just a little laugh...Has anyone else found any gems like this??

        -- Dom

        L Offline
        L Offline
        Lost User
        wrote on last edited by
        #11

        DominicZA wrote:

        cant seem to find the wall of shame

        See that big TreeView on the left ...

        Use the best guess

        B 1 Reply Last reply
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        • L loctrice

          In school I was taught that it was very wrong to break out of a loop. It wasn't just taught, there were 2 commandments students had to live by. One had to do with goto , the other was "You never break from a loop". You could get points off your project for that, or possibly a bad grade. What you posted is exactly what I learned, however with some instructors you could get away with adding a compound condition to the for loop. Of coarse in the real world you can break :cool:

          If it moves, compile it

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          A Offline
          AlphaDeltaTheta
          wrote on last edited by
          #12

          Now I realize that what was taught (and is been too) is sheer elephanting nonsense X| X| X|

          Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates; neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.

          ~ Carl von Clausewitz ~

          Source

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          • V V 0

            In school we learned never ever to use break, continue or goto (only exception is break in switch statements). If we had to break we were told to develop a construct like you mention here. Similar for return statements (only allowed for each method). This one however I support. You were downgraded if you didn't obey this rule.

            V.
            (MQOTD Rules and previous Solutions )

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            L Offline
            lewax00
            wrote on last edited by
            #13

            V. wrote:

            In school we learned never ever to use break, continue or goto (only exception is break in switch statements). If we had to break we were told to develop a construct like you mention here.

            Wow, that's crazy. Not using break is wasteful, if you know you're done with the loop you should just get out of it, and it's not like it's unclear where it goes. continue I can kind of get, you could just reorganize your code in most cases (since probably 99.99% of the time it's already in a condition, and that condition could be flipped). It really sounds like your teachers heard "don't use goto" and decided that included any instruction that directly created a jump :doh: (minus structures like conditionals and loops)

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            • D DominicZA

              So...I havent been on here in a while, but I cant seem to find the wall of shame so I thought here would do :P While going through our current framework I came across a module written by one of our senior devs, who apparently doesnt know what a break is, here is an example of what he does :

              for (var i = 0;i < myArray.length; i++) {
              if (conditionIsMet) {
              i = myArray.length;
              }
              }

              I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe he was using i somewhere else, but he wasn't. Anyways, just a little laugh...Has anyone else found any gems like this??

              -- Dom

              E Offline
              E Offline
              Ennis Ray Lynch Jr
              wrote on last edited by
              #14

              I am speculating that those who were taught to never use break in school had a prof. (who are we kidding, an adjust faculty member) who grew up with VB where breaks and exits litter the landscape like reflective markers on a roadway. Avoiding spaghetti logic is important, avoiding breaks not so much. I had a great VB6 example of how not to use breaks but I can't find it. Rule of thumb 1 break per loop is ok, more than 1 is not.

              Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch

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              • V V 0

                In school we learned never ever to use break, continue or goto (only exception is break in switch statements). If we had to break we were told to develop a construct like you mention here. Similar for return statements (only allowed for each method). This one however I support. You were downgraded if you didn't obey this rule.

                V.
                (MQOTD Rules and previous Solutions )

                A Offline
                A Offline
                AlphaDeltaTheta
                wrote on last edited by
                #15

                V. wrote:

                You were downgraded if you didn't obey this rule.

                We didn't have grades but marks, -15 :sigh:

                Beauty cannot be defined by abscissas and ordinates; neither are circles and ellipses created by their geometrical formulas.

                ~ Carl von Clausewitz ~

                Source

                1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • V V 0

                  In school we learned never ever to use break, continue or goto (only exception is break in switch statements). If we had to break we were told to develop a construct like you mention here. Similar for return statements (only allowed for each method). This one however I support. You were downgraded if you didn't obey this rule.

                  V.
                  (MQOTD Rules and previous Solutions )

                  B Offline
                  B Offline
                  BobJanova
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #16

                  What the actual elephant. A for loop with a conditional break is a standard idiom for finding things in collections ... never mind permitted, it's a standard pattern!

                  P 1 Reply Last reply
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                  • L Lost User

                    DominicZA wrote:

                    cant seem to find the wall of shame

                    See that big TreeView on the left ...

                    Use the best guess

                    B Offline
                    B Offline
                    BobJanova
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #17

                    To be fair it isn't called that any more and the new name is really un-obvious.

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                    • V V 0

                      In school we learned never ever to use break, continue or goto (only exception is break in switch statements). If we had to break we were told to develop a construct like you mention here. Similar for return statements (only allowed for each method). This one however I support. You were downgraded if you didn't obey this rule.

                      V.
                      (MQOTD Rules and previous Solutions )

                      R Offline
                      R Offline
                      Ravi Bhavnani
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #18

                      V. wrote:

                      In school we learned never ever to use ... goto

                      And did your instructors explain why it was unwise to use a goto?  (Was Dijkstra's paper ever discussed in class?) /ravi

                      My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

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                      • B BobJanova

                        What the actual elephant. A for loop with a conditional break is a standard idiom for finding things in collections ... never mind permitted, it's a standard pattern!

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                        PIEBALDconsult
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #19

                        Breaking out of a for loop is a code smell. (What's presented is even worse.) Maybe you don't want a for loop at all. Or, quite possibly, you just need another condition. for ( int i = 0 ; i < MaxCols && i < dr.FieldCount ; i++ )

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                        • P PIEBALDconsult

                          Breaking out of a for loop is a code smell. (What's presented is even worse.) Maybe you don't want a for loop at all. Or, quite possibly, you just need another condition. for ( int i = 0 ; i < MaxCols && i < dr.FieldCount ; i++ )

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                          B Offline
                          BobJanova
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #20

                          Conditions in the for loop itself are much less clear, to me at least. People are used to seeing a 'standard' loop and might well miss that entirely.

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                          • J jim lahey

                            Had I listened to college and university tutors in in 2001 I'd have learnt COBOL as "nothing is as good for manipulating text files".

                            G Offline
                            G Offline
                            Gary Wheeler
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #21

                            jim lahey wrote:

                            COBOL as "nothing is as good for manipulating text files".

                            I just everted my upper gastrointestinal tract. The ejecta (formerly my lunch) achieved an appreciable fraction of c[^] as it punched through the roof of our building.

                            Software Zen: delete this;

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                            • P PIEBALDconsult

                              Breaking out of a for loop is a code smell. (What's presented is even worse.) Maybe you don't want a for loop at all. Or, quite possibly, you just need another condition. for ( int i = 0 ; i < MaxCols && i < dr.FieldCount ; i++ )

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                              Y Offline
                              Yuriy Loginov
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #22

                              I personally prefer using the method you suggested as it is the cleanest looking and preserves the loop invariant. Breaking half way through the loop means you don't properly finish the iteration and raises the question of why did you actually start the next iteration if there was no need to do it. Its like going to the store to get a loaf of bread and then realizing half way that you already have bread at home and then turning back

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                              • B BobJanova

                                Conditions in the for loop itself are much less clear, to me at least. People are used to seeing a 'standard' loop and might well miss that entirely.

                                P Offline
                                P Offline
                                PIEBALDconsult
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #23

                                BobJanova wrote:

                                People are used to seeing a 'standard' loop

                                Show them more variety and they'll improve.

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