From: eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert)
Subject: Re: software engineering and the notion of authorship
Date: 1996/07/11
Date: 1996-07-11T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <4s38kf$mk6@der.twinsun.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 4rt244$bt7@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au
ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
> I had to maintain a large chunk of code which had only one comment ...
> and a lot of one or two letter identifiers. And code reviews were not
> a political practicality with that piece of code:
> it had been written by the _founder_ of the company before I joined.
> And he had left.
I had to maintain a similar batch of code, and if I'm not mistaken it
was written by the same guy for his previous company. It was a joy.
That guy really knew what he was doing, and his code taught me a lot of things.
But I had to write documentation describing the program so that
everybody else at our company could follow what was going on.
The documentation was considerably longer than the program that it described.
In extreme cases like this, the usual software engineering management
principles often don't work well. And extreme cases are often the
most profitable ones....
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1996-07-11 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 84+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1996-06-21 0:00 Language Choice and Coding style Nasser Abbasi
1996-06-21 0:00 ` The Amorphous Mass
1996-06-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-06-27 0:00 ` The Amorphous Mass
1996-06-27 0:00 ` Adam Beneschan
1996-06-28 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-06-28 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-06-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-02 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-06-28 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1996-06-29 0:00 ` Samuel Mize
1996-06-29 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-04 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-07-04 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-07-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-05 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-07-05 0:00 ` software engineering and the notion of authorship Fergus Henderson
1996-07-08 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-07-08 0:00 ` Jakob Engblom
1996-07-08 0:00 ` The Amorphous Mass
1996-07-08 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-08 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-09 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-09 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-11 0:00 ` Paul Eggert [this message]
1996-07-08 0:00 ` John Byerly
1996-07-15 0:00 ` Ralph Silverman
1996-07-15 0:00 ` Fergus Henderson
1996-07-17 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-19 0:00 ` Mike Curtis
1996-07-04 0:00 ` Language Choice and Coding style Dan Evens
1996-07-02 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-07-02 0:00 ` Samuel Mize
1996-07-03 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-07-03 0:00 ` Jeff Dege
1996-07-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-04 0:00 ` Phil Howard
1996-07-04 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-07-04 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-07-06 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby
1996-07-19 0:00 ` software engineering and the notion of authorship Andrew Gierth
1996-06-23 0:00 ` Language Choice and Coding style mfinney
1996-06-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-06-26 0:00 ` mfinney
1996-06-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-06-24 0:00 ` Dr. John B. Matthews
1996-06-21 0:00 ` Giuliano Carlini
1996-06-21 0:00 ` David Weller
1996-06-21 0:00 ` David Emery
1996-06-21 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk
1996-06-24 0:00 ` Adam Beneschan
1996-06-21 0:00 ` Louis Tribble
[not found] ` <4qeu56$52r@news.interpath.net>
1996-06-23 0:00 ` Nasser Abbasi
1996-06-23 0:00 ` Darin Johnson
1996-06-24 0:00 ` Andreas Schoter
1996-06-24 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-06-24 0:00 ` Adam Beneschan
1996-06-24 0:00 ` Peter Hermann
1996-07-01 0:00 ` Alan Brain
1996-07-02 0:00 ` John McCabe
1996-06-26 0:00 ` Nasser Abbasi
1996-06-26 0:00 ` Ian Ward
1996-06-24 0:00 ` Michael R. Hartwig
1996-06-24 0:00 ` Theodore E. Dennison
1996-06-29 0:00 ` Rich Maggio
1996-06-29 0:00 ` Samuel Mize
1996-07-01 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-02 0:00 ` Samuel Mize
1996-07-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-08 0:00 ` ++ robin
[not found] ` <JSA.96Jun26141502@organon.com>
1996-07-01 0:00 ` Russel A Hill
1996-07-01 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-08 0:00 ` Russel A Hill
1996-07-02 0:00 ` Richard A. O'Keefe
1996-07-02 0:00 ` Jon S Anthony
1996-07-03 0:00 ` Mark Eichin
1996-07-02 0:00 ` Nasser Abbasi
1996-07-03 0:00 ` steidl
1996-07-05 0:00 ` Samuel Mize
1996-07-06 0:00 ` N. L. Sizemore
1996-07-08 0:00 ` steidl
[not found] <01BB6E34.8313FAA0@idc213.rb.icl.co.uk>
1996-07-10 0:00 ` software engineering and the notion of authorship Robert Dewar
1996-07-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1996-07-11 0:00 ` Hugh Dunne
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