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From: jens@moscom.UUCP (Jens Fiederer)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: portable code
Message-ID: <653@moscom.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Feb-86 22:20:50 EST
Article-I.D.: moscom.653
Posted: Mon Feb 24 22:20:50 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 04:31:32 EST
Organization: MOSCOM Corp, E Rochester, NY, USA
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Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Titles
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Expires: 
References: <4514@kestrel.ARPA> <487@hoptoad.uucp>
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Reply-To: jens@moscom.UUCP (Jens Fiederer)
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Organization: Moscom, East Rochester, NY
Keywords: Computer Science

Dear Laura:

I think accusing people whose C code does not pass lint, assumes ints are
n bytes long, who don't check return codes from function codes, etc. of
being unprofessional is going a bit far.  Yes, their code is not portable.
If their intention was to write portable code, your accusation hits home.
Otherwise they might be entirely unconcerned.

A lot of code out there was originally never intended to be portable.  If
I have to work under heavy time pressure (say, write a form generator
interface for a database system in 1 week) to write a program for a
particular machine, I can not afford to spend any extra time making the
program portable, checking all error conditions, etc.  The effort must be
scaled to fit the task.

As often as not, code that is originally written by someone who had no
concern for portability is later ported unchanged ... to the chagrin of
the person who has to do the porting.  This chagrin is usually more
suitably attributable to management than the original programmer.  I have
known of several programmers who were wizards at getting quick and dirty
results who begged and pleaded for the time to beautify and deodorize their
code only to be transferred to some other project which needed to be done
quickly.  This, too, would be OK (I, for one, would rather spend my time
solving the basic structural and algorithmic problems and have some OTHER
poor schmuck slave away making the code presentable) if someone else were
given the problem of solidifying the actually unfinished code, but it is
usually abandoned as is.

Either it is easier to find someone to do the basic problem solving task
than to find a good tenacious finisher, or "those higher up" simply
don't appreciate the need for properly polished code.

This is the way of the world,

Azhrarn

This is the way of the world