rehrauer@apollo.HP.COM (Steve Rehrauer) (11/15/90)
In article <2796@laura.UUCP> klute@heike.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) writes: >In article <1990Nov11.013428.4566@cs.utk.edu>, andrew@.cs.utk.edu (Andrew >Krzywdzinski) writes: >|> I want to be able to write setup information directly to a program >|> file. > >I once posted a fundamental (as I think) article against self-modifying >code to this newsgroup. Here it is again - slightly generalized and of >course open to consideration and discussion: [ ...good reasons deleted... ] And perhaps more immediately relevant to ST programmers: you will regret writing self-modifying code when/if the TT is generally available. S-M code doesn't play well with instruction caches, which the 68020, '030 and '040 all have. Even building code on the fly, e.g. in a stack buffer, can cause havoc if you have both data- and instruction-caches and the D-cache isn't a write-through cache. S-M code is a "neat hack" that probably everyone is intrigued by at some point, but: "Just say no!" > In most cases it is fully sufficient to maintain a configuration file. >Keep an entry for every variable that needs to be modified permanently. >Upon startup of the program the whole stuff is read in again and the >program's variables are set accordingly. Simple, isn't it? -- "I feel lightheaded, Sam. I think my | (Steve) rehrauer@apollo.hp.com brain is out of air. But it's kind of | The Apollo Systems Division of a neat feeling..." -- Freelance Police | Hewlett-Packard