Montana50 Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 Over the years I saw in some answers that the use of an arbitrary high number [like in calculations] could not be a good practice. Why not? What could/should be the alternative? While I see in several custom functions the use of it.... Any example of the use of an alternative would be welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comment Posted December 28, 2022 Share Posted December 28, 2022 A calculation is supposed to implement the logic prescribed by the business rules set for the application. When a calculation uses an arbitrary limit - i.e. a limit not prescribed by the business rules - then it fails to express correctly the required logic. This has two potentially harmful effects: the limit is arbitrary, therefore confusing to the person reading the code; the limit can be exceeded in some unforeseen circumstances. In some cases a very high limit could also increase the time required to process the calculation. 3 hours ago, Montana50 said: Any example of the use of an alternative would be welcome. A classic example is: MiddleValues ( listOfValues ; 2 ; 999999999999999 ) The intent here is to remove the first value from listOfValues - which could be easily accomplished by: MiddleValues ( listOfValues ; 2 ; ValueCount ( listOfValues ) ) or even better: RightValues ( listOfValues ; ValueCount ( listOfValues ) - 1 ) But the author was too ignorant or too lazy for that. As a result, the person reading the code started a post here asking: Quote I am trying to figure out what the "999999999999999" is doing here in this partial script please 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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