I became a COBOL programmer back in 1983. One of the arguments an old Assembler guy and I used to have was regarding “efficient” vs “easily maintainable” code. Even back in the 80’s computers had become so fast that we were more concerned about the cost of maintenance rather than the cost of processing.
I rewrote a batch “local long distance toll rating” program and reduced it from 10,500 lines to 5,600 lines. It even had “alter go tos” in it. In the process of rewriting it, I found four problems that, when the SME was notified, turned out were problems they were aware of, but had no idea which program was causing them.
Some sections were accessed through “go to” and were accessed from other sections via “perform”, and sometimes “perform through”. It was a mess.
I had been trained by Boeing in “Pretty code”. It mattered. This was in 1993. I’m shocked I still remember this while I can’t remember where I laid down my phone.
But improvements to compilers should be the priority. It does not seem to be that way these days.
Interesting- a program I was working at BA used Python and Jinja to create templates for C++ modules.
We did a lot macro’s for BASM. It helped a little bit, also subroutines were helpful but not near as neat as functions in ‘C’. Having to save and restore registers was always the biggest issue.
In my experience. going back into old code to "make it pretty" is often how that kind of problem is found and corrected.
Some sections were accessed through “go to” and were accessed from other sections via “perform”, and sometimes “perform through”. It was a mess.
Sounds like a true coding abomination. Congratulations on sorting out such a thing. A lesser talent might have run screaming for the door with their hair on fire.
How long did it take before the nightmares stopped?