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: 1108a1,5da92b52f6784b63 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: ffc1e,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gidffc1e,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 107d55,a48e5b99425d742a X-Google-Attributes: gid107d55,public From: Nick Leaton Subject: Re: Papers on the Ariane-5 crash and Design by Contract Date: 1997/03/19 Message-ID: <332FD6AB.36E3@calfp.co.uk>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 226710248 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: calfp.demon.co.uk References: <332B5495.167EB0E7@eiffel.com> <332D113B.4A64@calfp.co.uk> <5gl1f1$a26$1@quasar.dimensional.com> <332E8C1A.3A7F@calfp.co.uk> <858728022snz@transcontech.co.uk> Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.programming.threads,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.java.tech Date: 1997-03-19T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Paul E. Bennett wrote: > > In article <332E8C1A.3A7F@calfp.co.uk> nickle@calfp.co.uk "Nick Leaton" writes: > > > But lets be practical. No body can sucessfully keep documentation in > > line with code, without errors. > > A lot depends on where the documentation of the software is located. If > it's in another obscurely referenced document then your statement above > will indeed be correct. However, if the documentation of the software was > part of the source code file itself, this would be less the case. To do this > effectively requires that code modules are small enough to enable thorough > review and rigourous testing for compliance and non-compliance with its > specification. Exactly, and having Eiffel style assertions go one better, you can test them. You cannot test comments. > > The more the code documents itself, > > and in this case I'm referring to assertions the better. Also, > > programmers like programming, not documentation. Documentation is not > > the product! It is an aid to producing product. > > There is probably a whole world of difference between self-documenting code > and plain code (locally) well documented. Whilst the former can be highly > desirable, the latter is good enough for virtually all situations. As this > documentation is part and parcel of the normal code commenting structure it > is a god-send when problems are being resolved. -- Nick