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Comment - Response to Mike

Comment by Ben Poole on 19 Aug 2002 ():

Mike said:

What is wrong with lots of code in shared actions?
Where is the advantage in putting the code in an agent?
Perhaps I could understand putting the code in a script library and calling from there but using agents seems a messy way to go.

Good question. This way of working, for me, is born out of unhappy circumstances. Shared actions constitute one design element in the NSF. If it corrupts (which mine did), you lose everything. If one agent corrupts, you lose just one hunk of code. So that's why I recommend the approach I outline.

Considering this anew, why store code outside an action? So you can re-use the routine. OK, so for script we can have code in a library and call that from an agent, a form event, a shared action, wherever. But for @formula, if you place the code in an agent, you can call it from all over the place also -- not so if it's stuck in a shared action.

My two reasons why! Thanks for asking. And yes, yours is the first comment. Hurrah!

And yes, in case anyone asks, I know you can only put responses against the main article. I may change that if use warrants it.

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