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From: dennison@telepath.com
Subject: Re: Open-Source and programming style
Date: 1998/11/16
Message-ID: <72pfum$h9c$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1
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Date: 1998-11-16T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <364d0243.39960214@SantaClara01.news.InterNex.Net>,
  tmoran@bix.com (Tom Moran) wrote:
> 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?

I notice a lot of people are attacking this statement on the basis that it
implies no (or ad-hoc) design. However, I don't think that is what is being
asked. If what you are getting at is the "worse-is-better" design approach
vs. the "the Right Thing" approach, I'd have to agree. After all, you can't
get the benefits of parrallel debugging until you actually produce something
nominaly useful in the first place. To quote shamelessly from Richard
Gabriel's The Rise of "Worse is Better":

   The lesson to be learned from this is that it is often undesirable
   to go for the right thing first. It is better to get half of the
   right thing available so that it spreads like a virus. Once people
   are hooked on it, take the time to improve it to 90% of the right
   thing.

--
T.E.D.

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