Large processing tables

[Fairlight]

Jumping into this late, and on a followup repy.  Missed most of the thread
but had a question on seeing this...

> On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 09:50:51AM -0500, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> > Pre-5.6, filePro processing was limited to 128K of compiled code.
> > This was increased to 2MB in the 5.6 release.  It's possible that
> > you have run into some problem related to this.

Can I just ask why there's a limit at all?  

I don't get it.  From my design standpoint, if you run up against legacy
limits and have to rewrite code, why not just be cost-effective and
effort-effective and rewrite it with full unlimited dynamic memory
allocation (to the limits of system resources available) instead of just
raising them a bit?  If the 9999 line limit (assuming it still exists) is
run up against, I would easily be able to imagine fP-Tech just raising
it to 20k or something rather than making it unlimited.  I haven't heard
otherwise, so I assume people are still saddled with the burden of a 
(32K - 1byte) dummy field size limit.  People wanted more automatic 
indexes, so they got what--another six, rather than unlimited.

You know, malloc() exists for a reason.  There are also ways to get
around legacy design problems (ie., just off the cuff, you couldn't use
double-letter indexes because they'd be taken as dummy fields, but you
-could- have implemented an index() casting function to tell it, "Hey,
override the 2-character supposition, this IS an index, use it as such.").
Old behaviour would have still worked, new behaviour could have been vastly
expanded compared to what it was.  Maybe that's not the only consideration,
but you get my point.

There's something to be said for the options afforded by a robust, "No
artificial limits," design in every aspect that won't break backwards
compatibility--and I think it would be the majority of cases.

In every case I can remember hearing regarding filePro and a limit, I
remember the limit simply being raised, not erradicated.  One of these days
it would be nice to see, "...changed to unlimited."

It's not personal, I just -don't- understand, so please explain it to
me.  Why have to rewrite it once every 5, 10, 15 years and risk breaking
it in each incarnation?  Why not just do it -once- for good as long as
you have to make a change anyway, and give it as unlimited a capacity
in whatever area you're working on?  I don't understand the continued
adherance to a piecemeal, gradualist approach.  It defies understanding
without a reasonable explanation--at least it does for me.  Yes, I'm likely
the exception.  What else is new? :)

mark->
-- 
Try our new SPF-0 lotion, SunScream[tm].  Get it while it's hot!