From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.9 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00,FROM_ADDR_WS autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 19 May 93 00:44:20 GMT From: sgi!fido.asd.sgi.com!dblues!jackr@ames.arc.nasa.gov (John Jack Repenning ) Subject: Re: McCabe package for Ada? Message-ID: <1tbvt4$2m3@fido.asd.sgi.com> List-Id: In article , alanw@williams.sps.mot.com writes: > Mark asks a REALLY good question: just what the $%^&* is McCabe's > number useful for? I've found the following uses: > ... > 2. Candidates for rewrites Careful with that approach: if it's recently written, or if it's causing problems, you might want to rewrite it. But if it ain't presently broke, no _way_ do you want to fix this one: you probably haven't a *clue* what it really does, or how. I've encountered (in a former job) high cyclomatic modules with an established history of more-or-less working, where we decided the best approach was to wall the thing off and avoid looking at it - even to the extent of some fairly complex head-standing to work around its idiosyncracies. We took that course, because our first reaction was to rewrite it, and that was an utter disaster (thank heaven for version control!). Jack Repenning M/S 1-875 jackr@wpd.sgi.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. x3-3027 Off:(415) 390-3027 Visual Magic Division Fax:(415) 390-6056