What is "bullock code" and what if we suppose that Englishmen use your programs? - MQL4 and MetaTrader 4

About coding style

Sceptic Philozoff · 2009-11-22T10:57:12.0000000Z

I bring this topic up because I have a decent experience of coding and recoding a long time ago written from scratch in MQL4 and I want to share my experience. My colleague, I don't doubt your ability to quickly write a program that implements some algorithm. But I've already made sure that if you have abandoned the project for whatever reason, returned to it a month later, and could not immediately understand it, you are not a good writer. In what follows I will tell you about my own requirements to the style of coding. Observance of these requirements simplifies further modifications. 0. Do not rush into action right away and write the program. Do as the classics recommend: spend a few hours on thinking about the structure of the program. Then you can sit down and write a program quickly, clearly and concisely. These few hours will pay off in speed of writing and further debugging many times over. 1. The length of functions should not significantly exceed 20 lines. If you cannot implement it, there are some places where you have not thought out the logic and code structure well enough. Moreover, it is on the longest functions and their relation to the functions they call that most time is often spent on code debugging. For example, my code now is 629 lines long and contains 27 functions. That's along with a description of the function call structure (2-6 lines) and a brief comment before each function, as well as 4-5 line blank separators between functions. In addition, I do not put block brackets (curly brackets) sparingly, i.e. for each of the two brackets I dedicate a line. If I remove all comments before functions, and reduce the number of separators between functions, then 27 functions will take about 400 lines, i.e. the average length of my functions is about 15 lines. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule - but that applies to the simplest functions or output functions. Generally speaking, a function should perform no more than 3-5 functionally different actions. Otherwise, it will be confusing. I also usually put a blank line between the function's functionally different actions inside the function. I have quite a few functions that are only 4 lines long (that's a minimum, with one line in the body of the function, one per declaration line and two per curly braces) to 10 lines. I'm not worried about code speed degradation because of that, as the code actually slows down not because of that at all, but because of crooked hands. 2. Don't be stingy with comments explaining meanings of actions, variables and functions. The 20-line limit for the function length remains intact in this case. If you break it, rewrite the function. You can use both single-line and multiline comments. 3. My functions are structured. There are top (zero) call level functions, 1st, 2nd, etc. Each function of the next level of call is directly called by the function of the previous level. For example, a function like this: // open // .pairsToOpen // .combineAndVerify( ) // Собирает из двух валют символ и выполняет все проверки, нужные для его открытия. // Возвращает валидность пары для открытия. // Последний аргумент - [...] bool combineAndVerify ( string quoted, string base, double& fp1 ) - is a third level function. Here: open() is a first-level function, pairsToOpen() is the second function (it is called by open()), and combineAndVerify() - third (it is called by pairsToOpen() function). The code of each function on the next level is indented further to the left than the code of the previous one. This makes it easier to see the structure of the whole program. There are exceptions to this rule too (there are functions called by two functions of a higher structural level), but this is not common. This usually indicates that the code is not optimal, because the same action is performed in several different parts of the program. There are, however, universal functions which can be called from anywhere. These are the output functions, and I put them in a special category. 3. Global variables : it's better to have fewer of them, but it's better not to overdo it here, either. You can stuff all these variables into formal function parameters, but then their calls will be too cumbersome to write and obscure in meaning. 4. Separate the actions of calculations and their output (in a file, the screen or SMS). I design all the output functions separately, and then paste the calls of such functions into the body of the calling function. This rule, in addition to improving code clarity and clarity, has another side effect: if you do so, you can very easily cut off all the output from the code and significantly reduce code execution time: output is often the slowest action in a program. 5. Variable names: well, that's clear. Everyone has his own style, but it's still desirable to make them in such a way that they easily explain the meaning of variables. I think that's enough to start with. If you want, you may add more.

Vadim Zhunko 2009.07.23 00:18 #51

What is "bullock code"?

Artur 2009.07.23 04:08 #52

code for "shitbroker"

Artur 2009.07.23 04:10 #53

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I just came across this mysterious term in a neighbouring thread . Just don't ask me what it means. Ask sab1uka instead.

TheXpert 2009.07.23 09:25 #54

Zhunko >> :
What is "bullocode"?

It's pretty well explainedhere, even with examples :) .

TheXpert 2009.07.23 09:33 #55

I completely forgot one other mandatory thing. Variable naming is in Aglian only.

Sergey Kravchuk 2009.07.23 11:09 #56

TheXpert >> :
I completely forgot one more mandatory thing. Variable naming is only in Aglian.

And I sometimes use russian names especially in parameters like: extern Period_in_minutes... and I get value and give hint in native language

TheXpert 2009.07.23 11:28 #57

ForexTools >> :

I sometimes use russian names, especially for parameters like: extern Period_in_minutes... and I get the value and give a hint in my native language

And what if we suppose that Englishmen use your programs? All right, but what if they are Turks or Chinese?

Сергей 2009.07.23 11:31 #58

TheXpert >> :
What if we assume that Englishmen use your software? What about the Turks? The Chinese?

Is the software in compiled form?

TheXpert 2009.07.23 11:36 #59

zxc >> :

Programs in compiled form?

Why in compiled form? Codobase is actively used. Even though it's mostly a junk dump, there's plenty of useful stuff in it.

Sergey Kravchuk 2009.07.23 11:41 #60

TheXpert >> :
What if we assume that Englishmen are using your software? What about the Turks? The Chinese?

I wrote "sometimes" - for example, when I'm writing exclusively for our "dunce" who wants to "do everything with ONE button".

it's the only case where it's better to write it in russian rather than explain what it means in english :)))

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