Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

[doylep@ecf.toronto.edu (Patrick Doyle)]

In article <dewar.872872168@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Patrick said
>
><<For my part, I'd guess that at least 40 to 50% of my time is
>spent looking for memory allocation bugs in C++.
>
>  If this isn't the case with you then, well, I suppose you're
>just the greatest darn programmer in the whole world.>>
>
>
>Well different people have different styles in programming. I personally
>like programming, but hate debugging, so I perfer to spend my effort
>getting this right to start with. But I realize others prefer to spend
>their time debugging -- it's a matter of taste partly -- although I
>suspect that a lot of people do spend far too much time with a debugger.

  Hey, I don't like debugging either...

>You do NOT have to be the "greatest darn programmer in the whole world" to
>avoid wasting 40-50% of your time looking for memory allocation bugs in
>C++, you just need to create the proper abstractoins in the first place.

  I'd love to know how.  Do you have any references to techniques
for this sort of thing?

>Now to be fair, you may well be spending this time on other people's
>poorly written code, in which case the blame lies elsewhere.

  Actually, in my case, that's true.  In fact, for the bulk of my
professional career, I've been upgrading legacy code, and I don't
really know much else, so maybe I'm overestimating my problems
with memory.

>But if you think my comment is a cheap shot, then you are far from being
>sufficiently aware of what can be achieved by proper software process,
>and this does NOT require super duper clever programmers, it is something
>that can be achieved by good management, and good choice of techniques,
>languages, and tools, with typical competent programmers, not super stars.

  Sure, but I still think it was a cheap shot.  Someone said "I spend
X amount of time finding memory bugs" and you said "then you must
be doing something terribly wrong".  Now that you've explained your 
reasoning, I think we're all better off.

 -PD
-- 
--
Patrick Doyle
doylep@ecf.utoronto.ca