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From: smithwik@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (R. Michael Smithwick -- FSN)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Poor software (was '030 Ami vs '040 NeXT)
Message-ID: <1990Dec22.070937.1425@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 22 Dec 90 07:09:37 GMT
References: <9012040257.AA10743@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <1990Dec5.233501.43949@cc.usu.edu> <1990Dec10.163711.19847@engin.umich.edu> <22109@well.sf.ca.us> <14240@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com>
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Reply-To: smithwik@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (R. Michael Smithwick -- FSN)
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In article <14240@mcdphx.phx.mcd.mot.com> fnf@riscokid.UUCP (Fred Fish) writes:
<In article <22109@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes:
<>gilgalad@caen.engin.umich.edu (Ralph Seguin) writes:
<>
<>>Most certainly true.  Who says that UNIX code is all that sloppy?
<>
<>I do, for one.  Ever seen the Bourne shell source?
<
<Not exactly an appropriate topic for comp.sys.amiga, but since when
<has that stopped anyone...  :-)
<
<Most of the absolutely worst C code I've ever seen has been in the course
<of maintaining Unix utilities over the last eight years or so.  Try peeking
<at the source to sdb or the COFF linker for example.  Before I actually
<had a chance to see AT&T's source, I had envisioned that such an
<elegantly designed system (compared to what I'd been working on) surely
<had jewels of programming expertise that a newbie C program such as myself
<could admire and learn from.  Imagine my shock and horror at finding
<routines that ran on for hundreds of lines with all kinds of early
<terminations, nesting of conditionials and switches a dozen levels deep,
<sloppy typing of variables, etc.  Gack!
<
<-Fred

Some time ago we got hold of the source to the infamous Silicon Graphics 
Flight Simulator. That one program alone probably helped sell half of
their machines. I was prepared to be humbled by near god-like coding
so elegant and clear that a 4rth grader could understand. I was going
to be ushered into the inner secrets of the great programmers, blah, 
blah, blah... Boy was I in for a letdown. 

main() was 1364 lines long! It contained nearly all of the programs
logic, making only occaisional calls to do some rendering. It looked
like a first year college student project on steroids. It sure gave
me much more confidence in my own abilities, and much less in 
Silicon Graphics.

Then I got a look at VAX Unix kernal source. YUCK! Certainly a
fine example of how not to code.

                                       >> mike smithwick <<

Any opinions are my own since nobody else would ever want them.

"Colonize Cyberspace!"