in reply to Code Maintenance

OK, 90% of Perl code you have to maintain is crap. This should not surprise you. Sturgeon's Law applies:

90% of EVERYTHING is crap.

Perl is an amplifier. It amplifies the bad along with the good.

At least rewriting programs is easier in Perl than in most other languages.

    -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos

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(jcwren) RE: RE: Code Maintenance
by jcwren (Prior) on Aug 05, 2000 at 01:57 UTC
    I'd have to disagree with the blanket statement of At least rewriting programs is easier in Perl than in most other languages.

    It all depends on what language you know best. Personally, I find re-writing a badly written straight 'C' program easier than Perl. I write Perl (and at rare times, good Perl), but I'm don't come close to the tight code that someone like yourself, Randal, chromatic, or btrott writes.

    Any sufficient complex process or algorithm poorly implemented in any langauge is going to be difficult to rewrite, particularly if you don't have any idea of what the target algorithm is.

    --Chris

    e-mail jcwren
[reply]
      Actually I have to agree with jcwren. I write crappy perl-code.
      I started programming perl close to the date I joined PM.
      I don't have years of experience like some of you have here. Actually I started
      programming 6 months ago before that I installed and maintained
      hardware and software.
      So don't expect from me nice code, but with comming to PM I learn
      how not to code. I get sometimes amazed with the solutions given here
      PM to different problems and the comments given on code, with this
      interaction I learn a great deal and sometimes prevent me from
      making mistakes...

      I still hope PM remains like it is a helpfull community and we are
      all willing to help others.
      This is why I think it's important that higher level monks keep
      they're motivation to point out what lower level monks are doing wrong.



      --
      My opinions may have changed,
      but not the fact that I am right

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