Re: Three simple questions

[Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>]

Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> writes:
> I don't buy it.  I find it impossible to chat about programs of any
> substantial size without writing them down -- that's what whiteboards
> are for. [...]

May be we aren't talking about the same thing. 

I have no problem telling someone (over the phone, so no whiteboards),
that the gizmo they're looking after in our code (> 100K, not that big
by Ada standard, but definitely not toy size ;-) is in package gizmo
factory, function make it with the argument item color being red which
translates directly to Gizmo_Factory.Make_It (Item_Color => Red); no
need to look up the spec or to try 50 casings.  When I run after
inconsitent names, I change them and try to educate the author (non
software engineer) about the merits of consistency in big programs (>
100 lines ;-).

As for talking about complex algorithms, or for how to insert your new
feature which will need changing over 20 packages, yes the whiteboard
or your favourite editor buffer is needed, I unfortunately agree 100%.

-- 
Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>