On Thu, Aug 10, 2000 at 02:54:14AM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > Of course code reuse is a Good Thing[tm], but most programmers i
> > know will not search for hours looking for a module, they will write their
> > own. It isn't it just UNIX, it is people's attitudes as well.
I think that's the crux of the re-use issue: what's the
break-even point, in terms of programmer effort, between solving
a problem with fresh code and lashing someone else's library
code in instead? Software engineering management manuals
insist that the second approach should _always_ be used. I'm
of the opinion that the folk who write these manuals are (a)
not confident in their own coding skills and (b) insufficiently
exposed to the grief and pain that is involved in debugging
someone else's infrastructure (particularly without source
code).
> It takes less time to search for something that does what you require than
> it does to develop it from scratch. Of course, I say this whilst having an
> annoying time finding something appropriate for the SLUG site. "From
> scratch" has crossed my mind a number of times.
That depends entirely on what the "something" is, and how strict
the conditions for "suitability" are.
For broad brushstroke sorts of things, like the "printer
support" mentioned in Miguel's article, sure: it's such a big
and thankless job that so few people care about these days
anyway that if a competent "unix print environment" system was
to be developed, I suspect that a lot of folk would choose to
use it. (On the other hand, I haven't printed _anything_ for
years.)
> > "First, it's done on UNIX, then done on Windows. It's always the way..."
>
> COM -> Bonobo
Ah, but RCP -> DCE -> CORBA -> COM (not directly, but conceptually).
> We're still playing catchup in some areas...
Sure, there are places where the "Unix" community has ignored
developments in the desktop area, because they weren't relevant.
Now they're becoming relevant to some folk.
{Please pardon the length of this outburst. I am being
frustrated at work at the moment by having to use a closed-
source, almost undocumented, poorly designed, _broken_ third-
party Windows DLL to interface to a fairly trivial piece of
hardware. Given the hardware specs, I'd write a better one
myself in a shot. Given the source code, I might consider
fixing the one that's there.}
--
Andrew
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