7 - Procedures and Functions – Divide and Conquer

Summary

VB Quip

Specialists learn more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. Generalists learn less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything.

– Anonymous

We live in a world of specialization. Want a cup of coffee? There's a store that specializes in coffee, any way you like it. Need a doughnut to go with it? There's a company that makes and sells the best doughnuts. Need something to read while you're enjoying a bite? Pick from thousands of magazines or millions of books on any and all topics imaginable. Gone are the days of the local handyman – the resident “Mr. Fixit” – who could fix anything and get anything to work. Today's world has specialists. A mechanic specializes in car repair. The cable guy handles your TV problems. When the office copier is on the fritz, call the copier guy. Everyone's an expert.

Programming is the same way. Blocks of code are written for a particular purpose. Some do simple tasks, but do them often. It's easier to write a procedure once for a task and then call it multiple times as needed. Other blocks of code might do a complicated calculation or solve a particular problem. These provide a specific function. It's easier to write and store these functions and then use them when needed than it is to create them from scratch. That's the basis for procedures and functions.