From: mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)
Subject: Re: Distinguishing type names from other identifiers
Date: 1998/01/16
Date: 1998-01-16T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <69nt40$q7n@top.mitre.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: dewar.884945034@merv
> ... everyone should agree ...
Dr. Dewar, it is obvious that EVERYONE does not agree with you that
indendation rules have ANYTHING to do with quality. Let me make it
perfectly clear, that something like indentation which tools can
change at anyone's whim with zero effort cannot be something that
reduces the cost of software maintenance or the reliability of a
development effort. Nor does the addition of competent mavericks to
a team hurt that team, unless the politics of the team is aimed
somewhere other than in the direction of getting the bugs out of the
product.
It is okay to espouse your beliefs, but it would be better to permit
the existence of other beliefs to co-exist with yours, and not be
so absolute as in the above quote phrase.
There is a certain level of project where it becomes essential to
stop measuring regimentation and volume, and instead measure the
things that make software maintenance more expensive. That is,
those things that cause the maintainer to spend more time analyzing
the impact of changes.
As proof that gnat has evolved past the level where regimentation
can make it maintainable, we have the decision of ACT that is too
expensive to upgrade the current version of gnat for DOS, gnat 3.07,
to a later version. Specifically, rather than becoming cheaper and
cheaper
gnat is becoming more expensive to maintain.
It would be worth addressing the fact that, despite using Ada,
gnat is becoming more expensive to maintain.
Possibly, the only way to make an Ada-95 program more expensive to
maintain is to DEFINE quality to be regimentation, and measure
that
regimentation rather than measuring things that decohese the
design and couple the code.
How much of the increase in the maintenance expense of gnat is
attributable to the philosophy of regimentation of SYNTAX,
rather than measuring the semantic problems?
This question is worth thinking out seriously, rather than
politically. The answer might support your view or other views.
But there are many projects that would like to ensure they
are measuring the right thing.
Certainly, enforcing syntax rules is trivial with the right tools.
But reducing the number of references to global variables, making
more types limited private, making more variables local, and
making more packages pure might take away more bugs in the gnat
code than continuing to enforce those syntax rules. It is worth
an experiment or two.
Mike Brenner
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1998-01-16 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 69+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1998-01-13 0:00 Distinguishing type names from other identifiers Adam Beneschan
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Michael F Brenner
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Michael F Brenner [this message]
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-17 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-18 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-18 0:00 ` who owns the code? was " nabbasi
1998-01-18 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-19 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-19 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-20 0:00 ` Paul Van Bellinghen
1998-01-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-21 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-22 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-22 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-21 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-22 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-26 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-20 0:00 ` Anonymous
1998-01-20 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
[not found] ` <69rnvv$ <dewar.885475174@me>
1998-01-23 0:00 ` James Hopper
[not found] ` <6a8mir$caa@nn <dewar.8855 <6a8vgd$cr7@nntp1.erinet.com>
1998-01-23 0:00 ` Richard Kenner
1998-01-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-23 0:00 ` Paul Van Bellinghen
1998-01-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-23 0:00 ` James Hopper
1998-01-22 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
[not found] ` <6a8mir$caa@nn <dewar.8855 <6a8vgd$cr7@nn <dewar.885555487@merv>
1998-01-24 0:00 ` James Hopper
1998-01-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-21 0:00 ` Philip Brashear
1998-01-20 0:00 ` Benoit Jauvin-Girard
1998-01-20 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-19 0:00 ` who owns the code? was " Anonymous
1998-01-19 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1998-01-25 0:00 tmoran
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-26 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1998-01-14 0:00 tmoran
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-14 0:00 ` nabbasi
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-10 0:00 Two simple language questions (plural types) Matthew Heaney
1998-01-12 0:00 ` Anonymous
1998-01-12 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-12 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-13 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-13 0:00 ` Distinguishing type names from other identifiers Nick Roberts
1998-01-13 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-14 0:00 ` Stephen Leake
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Anonymous
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-24 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-15 0:00 ` Aaro Koskinen
1998-01-17 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-17 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-25 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
[not found] ` <n5rs5FAStOz0Ew2+@dowie-cs.demon.co.uk>
1998-01-26 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-27 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
1998-01-27 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-27 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-28 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-28 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1998-01-29 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1998-01-30 0:00 ` Mats Weber
1998-01-28 0:00 ` Martin M Dowie
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