From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,d95b511473b3a931 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,8ff817fc5c863f82 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,d95b511473b3a931 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,d95b511473b3a931 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Jakob Engblom Subject: Re: software engineering and the notion of authorship Date: 1996/07/08 Message-ID: <31E0CF36.FDC@tick.infomatik.uni-stuttgart.de>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 167160647 references: <4quk22$78@krusty.irvine.com> <4r059t$2at0@info4.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> <4r3bp1$cea@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> <4rg3ph$2on4@info4.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> <4rjhv6$ilu@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: Informatik, Uni Stuttgart, Germany mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.software-eng x-mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (X11; I; SunOS 5.4 sun4m) Date: 1996-07-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Fergus Henderson wrote: > > In comp.lang.ada, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: > > >To me this "ego-centered" style of programming is deadly. It promotes a > >situation where in a big project code is owned by individuals. Ego-less programming is absolutely necessary to produce large functioning software. Or at least to maintain it later. > If there is a problem > in a particular piece of code, it makes sense for the expert on > that subsystem to be the one to fix it. They'll be able to do > it quicker, and with less likelyhood of error, than someone who > is not an expert on that subsystem. Yeah, but the real problem comes 10 years down the road, when the experts have quit or died or moved to other projects and plain do not remember the wonderfully complicated code they created back in '96... Using a "just complicated enough to do the job", "ego-less" programming style, makes it much easier for the new maintenance developer working with the program in 2006... the savings in the long run far outweigh the lack of "personal style" in the code. > >in the GNAT project ... You absolutely cannot tell > >who wrote code from its style, and indeed we strongly discourage the notion > >of authorship (we never for example attach names to units). Sure in practice > >certain people know certain code well and our informally the experts in > >particular areas, but if you look at the revision histories, you will see > >that all sorts of people work in all parts of the system. !!!! SUPEr!!!!! Only in software do we even think of accepting personal style like... it would be quite devastating in any other industry if an engineer insisted on using left-handed instead of right-handed bolts "because I feel creative today".. things have to fit together, and TEAM WORK is the essential part of any programming project. /jakob -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jakob Engblom. Computer Science Student @ Uppsala University, Sweden presently an ERASMUS exchange student in Stuttgart, Germany email Uppsala: jakob@docs.uu.se email Stuttgart: engblojb@tick.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de homepage: http://www.csd.uu.se/~jakob