There are two types of developers who really annoy me. One type are those who would not care to spend extra 30 minutes to understand the code before changing it and who selfishly think about finishing off their own work as soon as possibly creating mess for the next guy (and a lot of bugs). Another type are those who rush into rewriting the whole of the code so that it suites their own tastes wasting a lot of time in the process and not adding anything to the product and sometimes actually making it worse (as they don't understand what exactly it was supposed to do in the first place).
The right approach is to understand what the code does before you even start changing it. Make sure that the code after your changes is not worse in terms of structure then before the change is made. One should rewrite the code only when either the change is substantial, not minor (so that it makes financial sense to do it). I believe in small changes each of them making the code slightly better (but never worse - this is the main rule). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Gravagno" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 11:26 PM Subject: RE: [U2] more serious notes on GOTO > Richard Taylor wrote: > >Serguei wrote: > >> From my experience working with a team of different > >> developers this is the worst possible and a very selfish > >> scenario a developer might choose to follow. > > > > While I agree with you in principle, reality sets in real > > quick. Sometimes you simply don't have the luxury of time > > & resources to completely rewrite a module to bring the > > code up to today's standards. This is especially true if > > you are a consultant that is being paid to provide a > > specific solution, not update the entire code base. I > > HATE this too, but that is life. > > That's the point exactly. ONCE and only ONCE I was in a situation where > one of my consultants re-wrote a ton of client code to make it look nice so > that he could continue working on it in comfort. I don't remember the > number of hours but it was something like 30, which I had to pay him > (business decision) but which I couldn't bill my client - how can I > possibly justify that much time to a client that just wanted some "simple" > report enhancement? So I ate about 25 hours for nice looking code. No... > Never again, thanks. Call me selfish but I won't do work that is that > extensive for a client unless they sign off on it and they understand that > they are getting nothing but cleaner code for the effort - sometimes I do > sell that concept, but rarely. > > > > < (The BNF is the table of valid statements.)> > > I have not heard reference to BNF grammars in a > > loooonnng time. > > Oops, showing my geeky nature. > T > ------- > u2-users mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
