I think "clever" here is meant in the "smart-ass" sense.
Let me take this smart-ass definition to be measured by how much you write "compressed" code (in the sense of Kolmogorov complexity, which incomputability fits well with the cleverness). You have a compression function C: Program -> Program which compresses a program to the best /you/ can in reasonable time. So we have, for any program p you write, the length l(p) is greater or equal to the length l(C(p)). Now say you are able to debug a program p only if l(p) > C(p) + N bits (we are in log scale, so addition instead of twice). Then if you compress a program to the most /you/ can, i.e. you write a program p so that l(p) = C(p), then you're screwed for debugging it. I.e., between "Never write the same code twice" and "Compress your programs as much as possible", there's a line one should not cross. Laurent On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 6:20 AM, Jos Koot <jos.k...@gmail.com> wrote: > ** > Well, that may depend on how you define "clever code". Surely it is clever > to write well documented code that can easily be understood, debugged, > maintained and reused by yourself and by others. Understanding may require > knowledge of the discipline the code is written for, of course. In my > opinion it helps a lot first finishing the documentation and the > design (both user and 'inside' docs) before starting coding. With good and > well described design it is even possible to leave the coding to another > person, just like an architect designs a building and constructors build it. > My 2c, Jos > > ------------------------------ > *From:* users-boun...@racket-lang.org [mailto: > users-boun...@racket-lang.org] *On Behalf Of *Harry Spier > *Sent:* martes, 19 de marzo de 2013 2:56 > *To:* users > *Subject:* [racket] OFFTOPIC - Quote on Programming > > I found this quote on a blog and couldn't help sharing it :-) > > "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. > Therefore if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are by > definition not smart enough to debug it." Brian Kernigan > > > ____________________ > Racket Users list: > http://lists.racket-lang.org/users > >
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