Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ulowell!m2c!wpi!lfoard
From: lfoard@wpi.wpi.edu (Lawrence C Foard)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: hackers
Message-ID: <1046@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 27 Feb 89 02:40:01 GMT
References: <899@wpi.wpi.edu> <1854@ditsyda.oz>
Reply-To: lfoard@wpi.wpi.edu (Lawrence C Foard)
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. USA
Lines: 35

>....
>
>  * No flowcharts, writing code out on paper, specification, or indeed 
>    any abstract modelling of code outside of the author's skull.  
>    Just get on with it.
>
>  * Don't let comments obscure the author's understanding of the 
>    author's code.
>
>  * As long as their authors are around, allow programs to evolve.  
>
>....

Thats pretty much what I said any ways. But I guess I should have included the
compulsive programmer part in the definition to. This is fairly important to
the hacker style of programming, you have to enjoy it and be interested in what
you are doing for it to work correctly. If you are interested in what you are
doing you don't need to fill out reams of forms to show that you haven't been
reading playboy all day. Although more planning is needed for big projects, I
don't think 100's of pages of spec's helps much, a large number of informal
meetings between programmers would work much better. I don't think managerial
attempts to enforce good programming style are a good idea this acts only to
impose arbitrary restrictions. It is much better for some one to learn good
programming style from experience rather than have a set of arbitrary rules to
follow. Before some one starts programming for money they should have enough
experience to know what they are doing. 

P.S. Our mailer seems to throw up on quite a few addresses so I wasn't able to
     get mail back to several direct replys I received.

P.P.S. I can program better than I can write.
-- 
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| My opinions are violently objected to by my employer. I was fired last year|
| but they forgot to remove my account. Lawrence Foard (entropy)             |
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