| From: | Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [semi-OT] programming languages' evolution |
| Date: | Mon, 1 Feb 1999 18:07:05 -0500 (EST) |
> <SNIP>
> >Undocumented code is almost on the scale of decompiled
> >code for readability. :P The only saving grace of undocumented
> >code is that you can sometimes track down the original
> >programmer and get him to give you some verbal
> >documentation.
> Heh..I see your point now. If the code explains itself your fine.
Eep! That's still not my point. :) If the code explains
itself, with the help of whatever documentation is necessary, there's
no need for the programming language to force selfdocumenting code
onto you.
When I think of selfdocumenting code, I'm thinking of stuff
written with something like Javadoc as part of the spec, not code
where it should be intuitively obvious what's going on just by looking
at undocumented code. (Which, IIRC, was one of the basic concepts
around C. :P ) If my terminology is off-base, please correct me. I
don't believe in the existence of fully selfdocumenting code, so I
assume we're talking about something like forcing Javadoc into your
spec, which just isn't going to change the way you do things. Either
you wrote legible code before, and you'll do it despite Javadoc, or
you didn't, and you'll have a bunch of illegible code with Javadoc
stubs. I feel really silly documenting a variable called
"OrderWindow" with the comment, "this is the pointer that stores the
OrderWindow for the UI.", but Javadoc wants you to spend that effort.
> The problem is tracking down the former programmers, since
> they no longer work for the company, and aren't getting paid,
> most could give a damn if you can't decipher their code.
It doesn't give you a great chance, but it beats
machine-generated code by giving you some small hope. I had a look at
some of that in LISP recently, and it's really hard to make out.
> Sigh..I now remember why I got into sysadmin versus straight programming.
I've been debating making the switch. Seems like you need to
learn a lot of UNIX guts and be on call a whole lot though. I like my
flexhours. :)
Mark
