Re: McCabe package for Ada?

[cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!howland.]

In article <1tbvt4$2m3@fido.asd.sgi.com> jackr@dblues.wpd.sgi.com (John Jack Re
penning) writes:
>
>In article <C78rKq.57z@oakhill.sps.mot.com>, alanw@williams.sps.mot.com writes
:
>
>> Mark asks a REALLY good question:  just what the $%^&* is McCabe's
>> number useful for?  I've found the following uses:
>> ...
>> 2.  Candidates for rewrites
>
>Careful with that approach: if it's recently written, or if it's
>causing problems, you might want to rewrite it.  But if it ain't
>presently broke, no _way_ do you want to fix this one: you probably
>haven't a *clue* what it really does, or how.

Lemme get this straight:  you have some code.  Its your code.
The author doesn't remember what it does, or has long since gone
off to ostensibly greener pastures.  You don't have a clue what
it does.  So, you ignore it.  Hmmmmm .....

>I've encountered (in a former job) high cyclomatic modules with an
>established history of more-or-less working, where we decided the best
>approach was to wall the thing off and avoid looking at it - even to
>the extent of some fairly complex head-standing to work around its
>idiosyncracies.  We took that course, because our first reaction was
>to rewrite it, and that was an utter disaster (thank heaven for
>version control!).

Well, hell, Jack, I didn't say re-write the thing NOW.  But sure
as hell if you got some crusty ol' code that seems to work but
has McCabe numbers way up there (like, say 100 or above), you are
going to have to deal with it SOME DAY.  Unless you are working
in a completely stagnant world (which I know you're not -- heh heh).

Hell yes, if you're not using rcs or cvs or something for source
code control, you shouldn't even be bothering with McCabe or
much of anything.  You should go back to your sandbox and play with
the nice dump truck .....  :-)

>
>Jack Repenning		      M/S 1-875	     jackr@wpd.sgi.com
>Silicon Graphics, Inc.	       x3-3027      Off:(415) 390-3027
>Visual Magic Division			    Fax:(415) 390-6056

Clearly SGI is NOT one of these places.
--
  _ Alan R. Weiss  Motorola-Semiconductor Products Sector, RISC Software
_| ~-. 6501 William Cannon Dr. West, MD-OE112, Austin, Texas USA 78735
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  \(   DISCLAIMER:  I do not speak for Motorola, Inc.  | Fax: 512-891-3798

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