Procedurisation

Abstract

We shall use the term ‘procedure’ in a general sense to include those parts of a complete program variously called subprograms, functions, subroutines and segments. In general, procedurisation is used to break the problem down into more manageable parts to facilitate detail design, testing and maintenance. However the programmer is often faced with the dilemma of deciding which parts to procedurise. In addition to run-time overheads and the problems of interfacing, the illadvised use of procedures can lead to implementation and maintenance problems rather than to their reduction. The programmer should therefore always have sound reasons for procedurising and, in doing so. should ensure that the principles of JSP are not contradicted. For example, in chapter 9 we used a subprogram, with good reason, to solve the structure clash problem by considering two simpler* problems instead. The purpose of this chapter is to provide some general guidelines on procedurisation within the context of JSP.