Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!usc!srhqla!quad1!ttidca!hollombe
From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Coding standards (was Re: Programmer productivity)
Message-ID: <8395@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 12 Dec 89 00:20:44 GMT
References: <473ae701.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> <5007@netcom.UUCP>
Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath)
Organization: The Cat Factory
Lines: 29

In article <5007@netcom.UUCP> hue@netcom.UUCP (Johathan Hue) writes:
}In article <473ae701.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>, perry@apollo.HP.COM (Jim Perry) writes:
}One of my rules is "You shouldn't have to look at the code to understand
}what it does and how it works".  If the external documentation isn't
}there, then your programmers have no discipline and your managers are a
}bunch of whimps.  ...

Alternatively, the programmers want to keep their jobs and the managers
are a bunch of non-technical slave drivers (i.e.: marketing types), who
don't give a hoot about the software life cycle as long as the code gets
out the door on schedule.

}I once worked on a device driver and in the external documentation I drew a
}state machine of how one part of it worked.  Are you going to use ascii text
}graphics to draw boxes and arrows and put that in your comments?

I once worked for a place that actually did this.  They were a gov't
subcontractor and all gov't specs call for flow-charts of all the code.
They wrote a program that could read FORTRAN source files and draw a
flow-chart, either on a Tektronix graphics display _or_ in ASCII on a line
printer.

Your tax dollars at work. (-:

-- 
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@ttidca.tti.com)  Illegitimis non
Citicorp(+)TTI                                                 Carborundum
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (213) 450-9111, x2483
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