Re: Tips for improving skills at interpreting other people's code?

On Tue, 02 May 2006 14:31:51 GMT
"Bob Day" <xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Steve O'Hara-Smith" <steveo@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:20060501231049.5dda6caf.steveo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 01 May 2006 12:15:37 GMT
"Phlip" <phlipcpp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

James Dow Allen wrote:

Why not just throw it all away and start from scratch?

Because all the debugging that went into the original code represented
fine-tuning thousands of business decisions. These now only exist in two
places - the scrambled mind of the program, and the demanding mind of the
customers.

Even worse the customers will not think of most of the edge cases
until they come up (again) they've long forgotten the first time they came
up and were worked out and the result enshrined in some obscure corner of
the software.

And what do you do when, due to the code having been patched so many
times, or the language it was written in having become obsolete, or the
hardware it was written for having become obsolete, the program is
no longer maintainable?

Call in a bunch of consultants who promise to make it all better
for a suitably large fee and cry when it doesn't all work.

--
C:>WIN | Directable Mirror Arrays
The computer obeys and wins. | A better way to focus the sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licences available see
| http://www.sohara.org/
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Tips for improving skills at interpreting other peoples code?
    ... Because all the debugging that went into the original code represented fine-tuning thousands of business decisions. ... These now only exist in two places - the scrambled mind of the program, and the demanding mind of the customers. ... until they come up they've long forgotten the first time they came ... times, or the language it was written in having become obsolete, or the ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Adobe: Native Mactel apps years away... New Macs perform poorly
    ... Below is the first time in the history of CSMA that George Graves has ever ... it said that customers would experience ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: AMD opteron 64
    ... > Thanks Dan. ... > which is obsolete, which never fully complied ... may have missed it the first time around; ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: Logic Studio Released Today
    ... >> It doesn't automatically make them obsolete. ... obsolete software package are somehow relevant today? ... I can just see Edwin opening Logic Pro 7 for the first time and going Duh! ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: New modern race-spec buggy from Tamiya!
    ... their customers at last. ... It looks like the photos have been updated, ... I don't really know much about electric RCs really - but I quite like that ... I even got the Top Force because I missed it the first time ...
    (rec.models.rc.land)
Loading