On Sep 5, 2008, at 5:20 PM, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> One can only file a bug report if one finds what's known to be a  
> bug.  If
> you don't know what the code is intended to do, you can't possibly  
> know
> whether what you've observed is outside that scope.

   If it generates bad output, or drops core...

> expend effort on it.  I'm willing to do that despite the fact I'll  
> probably
> never use it commercially, as I don't believe in using HLL's for  
> small code.
> However, it does beg for a documentation cleanup/update.

   I hope you're not suggesting that C is a "high level" language.   
Of course it's possible that I'm just becoming argumentative. ;)

>> Software development is an artistic and evolutionary process, not
>> a step-by-step "pull this lever, push that button" process.  The
>> sooner you learn that, the sooner you'll be able to...write some  
>> code.
>>
> I've been writing code since the early '60's and certainly have to  
> disagree.

   Well your experience outstrips mine, having only written code  
since the early 1980s, but I'm still willing to bet that we're among  
the most experienced here.  I stand by my assertion; we may have to  
agree to disagree.

> While generation of software is a creative process, its proper  
> execution is
> subject to rigorous engineering procedures.  It's not the artsy-fartsy
> process that many dilletante's imagine it to be.  That's why,  
> unlike U.S.
> software houses, the Japanese houses, for example, have, for  
> decades, been
> bringing huge software efforts in ahead of schedule and under  
> budget, while
> U.S. producers are typically 200-300% over both budget and schedule.

   U.S. "producers" tend to be companies full of procedure-oriented  
suits instead of goal-oriented thinking people.  That's why.  Again,  
we may have to agree to disagree.  Commercial U.S. software  
developers are too mired in their procedures to ever get anything  
useful accomplished.  Case in point, the largest of them all:  
Microsoft.  The company that consistently churns out volumes of the  
most poorly-written code the industry has ever seen.  Of course, some  
profit-minded small thinker is going to pop up and say "yes, but  
they're so RICH!"  ...well, look at how they got that way.  It wasn't  
from writing quality software.

   On the other hand....This is a mail server that I'm responsible  
for; it handles inbound and outbound email for about twelve hundred  
people, switching roughly 300K messages per day:

mail.coconet.com$ uptime
  22:47:59 up 214 days, 11:46,  1 user,  load average: 2.07, 1.30, 1.42

   And one of the nameservers I run, handling about 700K DNS queries  
per day:

ns.coconet.com$ uptime
  10:49pm  up 555 day(s), 22:55,  1 user,  load average: 1.04, 1.03,  
1.03

   The first machine runs Linux, the second runs Solaris/UltraSPARC.   
Neither OS is developed using the stiff-assed, unproductive,  
procedure-oriented development methodology that you claim is some  
sort of a requirement for writing software.  Microsoft, however, does  
follow your methodology.

   I rest my case.

> Telling me to "swim for it" isn't going to lead in that direction.

   It wasn't meant like that, and you know it.  You have a mailing  
list full of regular SDCC users here who have offered to help you  
through any problems that you may run into.  Even I, a person who  
you've pissed off in other forums time and time again, have sincerely  
offered assistance.  Instead, you've chosen to waste your energy on  
this discussion for DAYS now.

   This is tickling a vague and disturbing memory.  Maybe nine years  
ago, someone on the classiccmp list loudly made the absurd assertion  
that "only 5% of software development is writing code".  I responded  
by stating that that person would never, ever work for me.  Was that  
you?

             -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL



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