Re: Open-Source and programming style

[dewar@gnat.com]

In article <01be0ff2$6dd17b60$96a55c8b@aptiva>,
  "Jerry van Dijk" <jvandyk@ibm.net> wrote:
>
> Tom Moran <tmoran@bix.com> schreef in artikel
> <364d0243.39960214@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>...
>
> > One advantage cited for Open Source Software is that it
can be
> > debugged in parallel by many people.  That would seem
to fit the style
> > of 'code anything, then debug until it works' better
than the 'design
> > it so it works in the first place' style, which seems
less amenable to
> > parallelism.  Comments?
>
> Ever seen a design, much less a requirements document for
> Open Source Software ?


I don't think you have any basis for assuming that Open
Source Software is any less well designed or less subject
to formal requirements specification than proprietary
software. It is really a completely orthogonal issue. It
is a marketing decision, not a technical decision to make
your sources open. There are well designed OSS applications
and poor ones, and is the case for proprietary designs.

The notion of lots of people debugging in parallel, and
changing the sources with little discipline is merely one
possible model of OSS development, not a very good one in
my opinion. Frankly I have seen lots of proprietary
development which suffered from the same weakness!

Certainly this model is NOT the model we use for GNAT,
where we very carefully consider design issues, and where
of course there most certainly is a requirements document
(it is called the ADa 95 RM :-)

There are those that are highly critical of the OSS
approach. I usually find they are people who have a big
investment in proprietary software, and who, like Microsoft
in the Halloween document, feel, quite understandably and
quite justifiably, under pressure from the OSS phenomenon!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

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