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From: iverson@xstor.com (Tim Iverson)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Modifiability
Message-ID: <1991Jun07.020546.29682@xstor.com>
Date: 7 Jun 91 02:05:46 GMT
References: <2192@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk>
Reply-To: iverson@xstor.com
Distribution: comp.software-eng
Organization: Storage Dimensions, Inc.
Lines: 33

In article <2192@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk> se90wak@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Wael A Khalil) writes:
>I would like to initiate a discussion on maintainability! 
>there are two main positions that people (and literature) take on how to 
>produce miantainable (and modifiable) software:
>	- Adopting a software development method and making sure that the
>	documentation is up to date will insure that the software will
>	be highly modifiable.

If the method is up to snuff, rabid application of it should produce results
that are easy to modify and maintain.  It helps if those criteria
(maintainable and modifiable) are held to be more important than than other,
perhaps contradictory, criteria (such as short term results).

>	- Software engineering method is not enough, there is more to it.

My opinion is that the ability to produce lucid and concise expressions in
the written tongue used in the project (btw, this *must* be english - even
the danes don't know what P() and V() stand for :-) can add a great deal to
the effort.

The main use of a design document is to communicate your design to others.
If you are hard to understand, your design will be hard to understand and it
will be hard for others to modify.  After all, the first step in any attempt
at modification is to answer the question, "Where are we now?".  If the
answer is less than clear, it will be harder to answer the subsequent
questions of "Where do we want to be?" and "How do we get there?".

Worse, you may end up saying, "How did I get here?", "This is not my house!",
"This is not my beautiful wife!",  ...


- Tim Iverson
  iverson@xstor.com -/- uunet!xstor!iverson