Code clear and document.

Ask help when you need it.

Refactor, and keep it simple.

InterSystems gives you power,

through simplicity,

the ultimate sophistication.

I wish I could save an article to read it later... Looks like the subscription is not working. I subscribed to some articles to read them later and they don't show up on my "My Content > My Favorites".

Kind regards,

AS

Here is my wish list (from the most important to the most desirable):

- There were more frequent releases. Why waiting months for the next release... If there is a small harmless feature that is good to go, why not publish it on a new release? 

- Support for seeing the other (.cls of CSP, .cls of a CLS, .int of a MAC, etc.) and the ability to jump to a relative location inside the INT: zNameOfMethod+10 (for instance).- Support Javascript syntax coloring on CSP

- Support for javascript files with long lines (such as the "min" version of javascript frameworks such as jquery or bootstrap). Atelier will mark these files with an error flag even though they are ok.

- Support for opening Management Portal of a specific server connection

- Support for using Studio wizards of a specific sever connection

- Support for seeing a CSP page (like when we click on the globe icon and the CSP page opens)

- Being faster

- Support for the Add Relationship wizard to classes

- Support for the other wizards such as add index, add property, add method, etc. These wizards are very good for beginners that don't know CDL or COS. I always use these wizards on my Sales demos because people then realizes that it is very easy to use our technology.

- Better testing with common source control plugins like GitHub, specially when developers are using a mix of operating systems (windows, linux and mac). There are many problems with CRLF x CR and character encoding. When the source is uploaded from a Windows machine into GitHub and downloaded on a Mac machine, it will synchronize with the server that will then change the CRLF to LF and make Atelier think that I touched the source when I didn't. The git diff then will add all those files to my pending GitHub list of files and I will have to upload them again to GitHub for them to disappear. I have only solved this problem by making all developers work with the same combination of encoding (utf-8) and end of line character (LF) on all platforms. My suggestion was that Atelier should be forcing UTF-8 and LF on all platforms to eliminate this problem.

- Support of a plugin to run SQL queries on the database with SQL syntax coloring, code completion etc. like WinSQL or Squirrel does. I mean: We could have Atelier installing some plugins that any developer would need. The same goes for UML editors that could allow us to see the application model more clearly.

But I miss a lot a nice For Each sugar... This:

ForEach MyVar(key) 
{ 
    Write !,key 
} 

Is much better to read than:

Set key=""
For 
{ 
    Set key=$Order(MyVar(key))
    Quit:key=""

    Write !,key 
} 

I mean... We write code like this all the time, right? Locals and Globals are so important to us... Why not giving them some sugar?

Of course that the ForEach command would only try to $Order the last variable just like it works today with $Order. So instead of:

Set key1=""
For 
{ 
    Set key1=$Order(MyVar(key1))
    Quit:key1=""
 
    Write !,key1

    Set key2=""
    For 
    {
         Set key2=$Order(MyVar(key1, key2))
         Quit:key2=""

         Write !,$C(9),key2 
     }
} 

We would have:

ForEach MyVar(key1)
{ 
     Write !,key1
     ForEach MyVar(key1, key2) 
     { 
          Write !,$C(9), key2 
     }
} 

Much clearer and nice to read, don't you think? And if you really want to be fancy:

ForEach MyVar(key: value) 
{ 
    Write !,"The value for key ",key," is: ", $Get(value)
} 

Where value could be <UNDEFINED> if that local/global node ends up having no value defined (that's why the $Get on value).

I know it would be a lot of work, but, on a side note, It would be awesome if we could open up our virtual machine and give people the tools necessary so the community could implement other languages for our virtual machine. We could move our VBScript and TSQL implementation to this new, open, framework and have people use it as templates to build their own languages or language improvements.  I know building a compiler is not an easy thing and there are things that you have to hammer on the code. But it would be an interesting challenge and investigation project.

I would like to join! My e-mail on the community is Amir.Samary@intersystems.com.

I haven't read the article yet but, just to let you know, the first two images are missing.

Is there a difference between ! and $?

Hi Daniel!

I tend to look at REST services as a SOA Web Service an, as such, it must have a "contract". Binding this contract to the internal implementation can be problematic. Normally, you would try to work with a JSON object that is more "natural" to your web application while dealing with CRUD operations related to it on the server. That would allow you to decouple the client from the server through the contract and change your server implementation while keeping you client untouched.

So, beware that this excessive coupling can indeed increase productivity right now but may become a nightmare in the future...

Kind regards,

AS

I understand the power of %SQL.Statement but as most of my queries are simple I continue using %ResultSet since the error treatment with %Status is more consistent.

It is bad enough that we have to deal with a mix of %Status and Exception handling. I don't like to have to check for %SQLCODE being negative after %Execute() and, if it is, having to transform it to a %Status to keep error handling consistent.

%ResultSet's Execute() method will return me a %Status while %SQL.Statement interface makes me have to deal with yet another type of error (%SQLCODE) making error handling code yet uglier... 

I like consistency, so I continue using %ResultSet. But when I need more functionality or more speed, I use %SQL.Statement instead.

Respectfully,

AS

Hi Dan!

I have been using %ResultSet forever and my coding style is as follows:

/// Always return a %Status
ClassMethod SomeMethod() As %Status
{
     Set tSC = $System.Status.OK()
     Try
     {
          Set oRS = ##class(%ResultSet).%New()
          Set tSC = oRS.Prepare("Select ......")
          Quit:$System.Status.IsError(tSC)        

          Set tSC = oRS.Execute()
          Quit:$System.Status.IsError(tSC)

          While oRS.Next()
          {
              //Do something...
          }     
     }
     Catch (oException)
     {
          Set tSC = oException.AsStatus()
     }
     Quit tSC
}

As you can see, it is painful enough to have to deal with both Try/Catch and %Status ways of handling errors. I have used Try/Catch in the same way I used to use $ZT back in the days. We must protect the code from unpredictable errors such as <FILEFULL>, <STORE>, etc. On the other hand, most of our API return %Status. So, there is no choice but to use a similar structure for handling both ways of reporting errors.

With the new %SQL.Statement interface I am required to check yet another way of reporting errors (SQLCODE) and translate those errors to either %Status or an Exception. That makes my code look ugly and no so much object oriented as I would like. You see, when I am doing demos and coding in front of people I tend to code the same way I code when I am building something for real and vice-versa. Caché/Ensemble is really a formidable technology and one can build things with our technology that would take anyone else months on other technologies. But the first impression is key and when I am doing demos I want to show beautiful code that is easy to read and understand. That is why I keep using %ResultSet. It's true %Prepare() will return a %Status but %Execute won't and I would have to inspect %SQL.StatementResult for it's SQLCODE and transform it into a %Status/Exception.

I opened a prodlog for this some time ago (118943), requesting an enhancement for this class to support a %Status property as well as a SQLCODE. 

Kind regards,

AS

If you need to monitor your productions, try checking out the Ensemble Activity Monitor:

http://docs.intersystems.com/latest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls?KEY…

It will give you the information you need with minimum performance impact since the data will be stored on a cube and your queries won't affect your runtime system. You can see the counts on the last hour, week, month and year with trending graphs. You will also get the same for queuing and wait time. It's great stuff!

Hi Mike,

%List is not supposed to be used that way. It doesn't have a projection to SQL, so you can't create a property on a persistent class with it and expect it to work as a %String or %Integer property will. You could have it there as a private property for some other purpose of your class but not to be used as any other property as you expect.

I think %List was created to be used on the definition of method parameters and return types of such methods to represent a $List parameter. Then one would know that such datatype must be used and this would also be used when projecting those methods to Java, .NET, etc. for the same reason (there is a Java/.NET/etc. $List like datatype for every language binding we support).

If you need to represent names in a format such as "Surname,Name", try using %String or creating another datatype that inherits from %String and validates that the string is in such format by implementing the IsValid() method of your datatype.

Also, don't try to use LogicalTo*, ODBCTo* or DisplayTo* methods directly. Those are called by the SQL and Object engine accordingly. For instance ODBCToLogical is called when storing data from ODBC/JDBC connections. You shouldn't have to call these methods. 

Kind regards,

AS