Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> writes:
> In front of your face, at your current employer. Boy, I've heard
> about your crappy Lisp, let me tell you... <;-)
*My* current employer? Someone said they had Symbolic's Lisp
machines at one time...
> Where is the line between "expressiveness per LOC" and obtuseness?
I'm sure it is a purely subjective measure.
>> > My point is that it's too easy to make a one-liner, or
>> > a hundred line long one-liner, in Perl, and it's considered by some to
>> > be a great thing. It's not, if others are expected to make sense of
>> > it.
>>
>> And my point was that you shouldn't expect a newbie to maintain code
>> written by a guru, no matter what the language.
>
> But the guru should not presume that only gurus will ever see or
> have to maintain his code. That's the issue, as I see it.
So, I think we can safely conclude that some programmers have a bad
habit of writing code no one can read. God help them.
People experienced at programming (at least, those who've worked with
others for any period of time) should've recognized this long ago and
begun to write code that is readable by many.
Still, sometimes you want to read a good novel instead of the
newspaper. Or maybe yu want to write a good novel.
That is, newspapers are written at the 6th grade reading level or
lower. Novels can be written at whatever level the capabilities of
the author are.
In the same way, you should keep your audience in mind when writing
code. Not only the user-base, but the code-readers (maintainers) as
well.
How's that for consensus?
What I hear, though, is that all programs should be written as
newspaper articles -- to the lowest common denominator. Ok, I can
accept that for a day-job. But, why constrain myself when I'm writing
the equivalent of the Great-American Novel?
Mark.
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Received on 07/13/03
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