Hi guys,

I am new to ASP and have decided to start developing in ASP with the aim to progress to ASP.NET. I have invested in the following book: Beginning ASP 3.0.

Overall, I am very surprised how well written the book is. Very easy to understand and it also has its funny moments. I have a smaller issue - referring to page 212. It state how I can improve my function listed below:

from this

<--
Select Case (varLocation)
Case "city"
varCost = CityCost(2)
Response.Write "The two day course will cost $" & varCost & "<BR>"
-->

to this:
-->
Select Case varLocation
Case "city"
Response.Write "The two day course will cost $" & CityCost(2) &"<BR>"
-->

The author claims that the latter piece of code is a faster technique, however, I am not sure what he means with this? Fact is that is took the same time to write both codes and when testing how quickly each code would take to execute I could not really see a major difference.

My point is the following - sometimes the author claims that it is quicker and better to write a code like this rather than like that. Overall, I am sure he is right, but sometimes these 'quick schemes' are not making any sense, and as an inexperienced ASP programmer I cannot at the moment look at a code and write a better (quicker) one. Often I have understood the code that was written prior to creating the quicker code, and suddenly I am lost. Hence, my question is how much should I put into the authors 'quick schemes'? What if I am quite happy with the code as it is? After all, it still works great.

Is it really that big a difference in the overall performance of a program? I have a feeling that writing code often depends on the programmers own programming experience. Please make some recommendation to how seriously I should take some of these recommendations. After all, improving a code could end up in a never-ending debate on who is right and wrong - do you prefer red or black, I hope you understand my point

Finally, I am also looking for a system that can help me evaluate when to use the many different programming techniques ( Functions, branching, and so on). In other words is there a book with real live examples that can give me an idea to how to program for certain scenarios? Initially, I am not interested in the actual code but more in the logic of thinking in programming.

As an example in the same book, page 208 the author provides a small introduction to what I about to develop. First, I was trying to understand what to develop and then relate it to the many functions and other programming elements that I have learned so far. It was a bit hard to evaluate which piece of code to program in, as I am not yet 100% sure on what to use. Are there any good books on this - how to thing as a programmer (ASP)? Please confirm

Cheers,

Dynamic2004


Dynamic2004

(moved topic to appropriate category - planoie)

Why do this:

varCost = CityCost(2)
Response.Write "The two day course will cost $" & varCost & "<BR>"

When you can do this:

Response.Write "The two day course will cost $" & CityCost(2) &"<BR>"

Why use an unnecessary variable assignment? It's just another line of code to run. Surely, in the grand scheme of things this tiny change will have little impact on the overall performance, but to use the camel and straw metaphor, if you make thousands of these types of optimizations in 10s of thousands lines of code, it can help.

I know the type of book you are looking for. I have found very few (if any) of these types of books. I have found that some people just know how to think programmatically. It's a hard way of thinking to teach people.

Peter
-------------------------
Work smarter, not harder