Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!exodus-bb!khb From: khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (chiba) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Reusability considered harmful??(!!) Message-ID: Date: 30 Jan 91 22:22:32 GMT References: <6108@stpstn.UUCP> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Organization: Sun MegaSystems Lines: 34 In-reply-to: cox@stpstn.UUCP's message of 29 Jan 91 21:41:40 GMT In article <6108@stpstn.UUCP> cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) writes: ... What do you think of this notion? Could it be that we (reusability proponents) are shooting ourself in the foot with the word, "reusability", just as the AI community did themselves in with a term of their own choosing, "artificial intelligence"? Such words are fine for agreeing with one's friends, but are terrible for persuading one's enemies. .... In my experience, the most code reuse is in the FORTRAN (soon to be Fortran) and COBOL communities. They don't talk about it. They do it. The folks who have used the words the most have tended to be those that have pitched me on Algol, Pascal, Ada, Smalltalk, and nowdays C++. Both in biz and sci circles the problems are somewhat better defined (math folks spent a couple of thousand years getting the notation down, and matrices are a suitable abstraction for a large class of interesting problems. Rather than debate names, work on the underlying substantive issues which inhibit "normal" software developers from reusing code. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Keith H. Bierman kbierman@Eng.Sun.COM | khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM SMI 2550 Garcia 12-33 | (415 336 2648) Mountain View, CA 94043