Messages in this thread | | | From | "Andrew E. Mileski" <> | Subject | Re: Take A deep Breath | Date | Thu, 17 Jul 1997 20:29:16 -0400 (EDT) |
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> I agree, but the response from certain Linux developers is that > "the source code is self documenting". Ya right. None of the > kernel source code would pass a review at any company I know of, > or even be accepted as a college/university assignment. > > You have a very highly idealized view of what code is like in commercial > environments.
No, I have a practical, day-to-day experience that may differ from your own.
> I've talked to a number of folks who have a spent a lot of time working > in such environments, and they've all told me that there's a lot of > unbelievable crap out there, in software which you may be using every > day. The issue is that in the "rush to market", there's often not time > to do full debugging and coding and internal documentational.
I agree, some companies do it that way. That doesn't make it sound development strategy. When I last went looking in the job market, all the companies in my area were ISO900* compliant (a government town makes this a requirement - heck, a few fly an ISO900* banner outside their offices). The first question they ask is, "What are your [code] documentation skills?" Any idiot can write code, and I've had to deal with the code of a lot of idiots.
Again, my experience differs from yours. I can't understand why some people don't realize this, and accept it like I do.
> This is why being able to read poorly documented code is a very > important real world skill....
Agreed. I've had to reverse-engineer stuff (I actually got to enjoy doing that <shudder>). This wasted huge amounts of time and effort that would have been better spent on new development. A lot of the companies in my area realize this.
If we have different opinions, so be it <shrug>.
P.S. If you want to make a living a reverse-engineering programs of several MLOCs (million lines of code), written in disgusting languages like COBOL, FORTRAN, and even SmallTalk, there are hundreds of openings in my area alone. It's all grunt work - documenting code that can no longer be maintained. [Sound familiar?]
-- Andrew E. Mileski mailto:aem@netcom.ca
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