Re: conditions and `for` iterations

K K <pmi.imp@gmail.com> writes:


> And if there's no performance difference, which version would you
> choose (regarding maintainability, etc.)?


As our esteemed moderator says, for a high-level lanugage (i.e. not a
direct assembler or something else where one expects a 1-1 mapping to
machine code), they should have equivalent performance.


Thus, it comes down to maintainability.


Personally, I would chose the one which takes the least code to write
and has the least nesting.


Thus, if I have a loop with lots of exits I would tend to prefer the
"break" syntax as that will probably be "better" by my criteria. In
contrast, if I have code with lots of reasons to skip to the next loop
I would pick the "continue" style. Often, I have code that has both
and the ordering of the tests is important, so I do a little of one
and then a little of the oter, and back and forth until the loop is
described.


Even better would be to use a tool (often called a "decision table"
processor) like "Logic Gem" or "Statemate" that allows me to describe
the conditions graphically and validate that I have all the options
covered with no ambiguous overlaps and let it worry about the low
level representation.


Hope this helps,
-Chris


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