Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!unido!ztivax!ap542!david From: david@ap542.uucp Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Re: Readability of C/C++ vs. Readability of Ada Message-ID: <1991May16.172129.14877@ap542.uucp> Date: 16 May 91 17:21:29 GMT References: <72084@microsoft.UUCP> Sender: news@ap542.uucp (News Admin) Distribution: comp Organization: Siemens-Nixdorf AG, AP 341 Lines: 39 jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) writes: >|Jim Showalter writes: >| Not really. The vast majority of work on software that goes on (like, >| about 70%) is MAINTENANCE. This is often performed by underpaid, >| underskilled, and overwhelmed junior programmers ... > >Seems to me this is like arguing that since the trim panels keep falling >off of American cars, we ought attach them using big slotted screws, so that >when they *do* fall off anyone with a big slotted screw driver can fix them. Yes, exactly. Cars with nicely tailored but impossible to fix features like some trim panels are specifically meant to fall apart and be thrown away so people buy new cars rather than fix their old cars. This is intentional, "planned obsolescence" and all that. Otherwise the car manufacturers would have stopped building any cars a long time ago. Software SHOULD be written to be maintained, not simply developed. APL, the best example of a write-only-language I know of, is really a WONDERFUL language for capturing everything you are thinking about right now. But if you are trying to solve a problem which takes many people to think about for a long time, then it is useless - you simply can't tell what the hell you did last week! Many languages, and I think C++ or poorly written C are two good examples, are easy to write and deal with for VERY GOOD programmers, and simply impossible for the "underskilled and overwhelmed junior programmers" who end up maintaining and enhancing to software. You must think about the poor slobs who come after. I sure as hell don't want to spend my life maintaining something I developed. I would much rather make it so simple, so easy to understand, that ANYBODY can figure out what I did. So they don't ask me silly questions. **========================================================================** David E. Smyth david%ap542@ztivax.siemens.com <- I can get your mail, but our mailer is broken. But I can post. You figure... **========================================================================**