Re: Metrics! (was) Nethack! (was): AdaGames

["Kent Paul Dolan" <xanthian@well.com>]

"Wes Groleau" <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote:

[and quoted without attribution:]
 
> > Then there was the week I decided to refactor several badly designed
> > units, and got a visit from a bemused team lead mock-castigating me
> > for making *negative* progress that week. :-)

> In my fifteen or so years as a "software engineer,"
> I would estimate that about half of the bug fixes
> and 20% of the enhancements I've done have been
> accomplished by REMOVING code.

Yes, that experience here is as fresh as an hour ago.

Given a few hints over in comp.lang.java.programmer, I realized that I'd
over-coupled some code and misplaced other code.  By the time I finished
five hours work, I'd probably ripped out three times as much code as I
added, and detached 26 modules from one module they didn't need to
reference, and removed about eight other instances of excess coupling.

Those are the days that make you feel best as a programmer -- when you
can actually put to use all that stuff you learned about what makes good
software.  And as you say, lots of times it is by exercising the CS
equivalent of Occam's Razor.

xanthian.


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