On Thu, 2005-10-13 at 13:20 -0700, Greg Woodhouse wrote: > > --- Todd Berman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Thu, 2005-10-13 at 12:37 -0700, Greg Woodhouse wrote: > > > > > > --- Todd Berman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > So yeah, I'd say not for the faint of heart. > > > > > > > > --Todd > > > >
<snip> > > And the only real way to > > look at this is you have to first understand 160,000 lines of code, > > and > > then rewrite them. > > if you're working from a set of functional requirements, then it is not > necessary to understand the existing code, only what it does. Trying to > "translate" someone else's code can easily be more daunting than > sitting down and writing code to do the same thing. > Greg. If you can understand what code does without understanding that code, let me be the first to congratulate you and offer you a job. That is an amazing skill, that I never believed I would live to see. Seriously though, did you mean something different, or am I confused? > > Sure, you can do this as you go, > > You have to. > > > and sure, you can > > make tons of changes to make the code smaller and more maintainable > > (this is something we do all the time), but you still are porting the > > application and there is no two ways about it. > > Okay, let's suppose I'm given the task of writing a O(n*log n) sorting > algorithm in the "Snowball" programming language. I can sit down and > develop an algorithm from scratch, maybe remember quicksort or merge > sort from a college course, or I can pick up a copy of Knuth, and > convert the sample code to "Snowball". In the fist case (or even the > second) I may come up with code that implements basically the same > algorithm, but can I honestly be said to be porting the code published > in Knuth? I don't think so. I would believe that the implementation of an algorithm and a large functional program are more unlike than alike, but either way, I do understand your point. --Todd ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: Power Architecture Resource Center: Free content, downloads, discussions, and more. http://solutions.newsforge.com/ibmarch.tmpl _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
