Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: Lester Zick (lesterDELzick_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 02/28/05 

Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:04:35 GMT

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 20:30:13 -0500, "robert j. kolker"
<nowhere@nowhere.net> in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>Albert wrote:
>>
>> This statement also tells me that we are perhaps talking past each
>> other: Coding is not programming. When I started work there were only
>> programmers. The distinctions invented to describe the hierarchy that
>> later developed (analysts, architects, etc.) did not exist. Programmers
>> did everything.
>
>And their creations showed it. Early systems were unbelievable messes.
>Spaghetti code, no comments, no specs and hair from multiple fixes. One
>of the ways I made my living was do archeological digs into legacy code
>to figure out what was going on so I could re-write the system in such a
>way that it would be modifiable.
>
>The early days of software system building producing things that worked
>(seemingly by miracle) and systems that could not be modified by anyone
>but the person who wrote it.

Gee, Bob. Maybe there's something to recommend you after all. Perhaps
we should be swapping sea stories about nested ALTER-GOTO's and nested
IF's instead of Planck's constant and universal predicates.

Regards - Lester

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Economics of Incompetence
    ... and Incompetent programmers they currently have on staff. ... them (except perhaps they've never seen competent programmers in action). ... imagine the guy who writes the spaghetti code is interviewing you. ... This is the horror of "incompetent management" ... ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.general)
  • Re: problem in creating Services
    ... so called chief programmers came up with a list of programming rules. ... It would produce spaghetti code ... where is that spaghetti style? ... exit points and at all points the same cleanup would be required. ...
    (microsoft.public.vc.mfc)
  • Re: Goto - finally
    ... primary reason for existence is all the Java programmers who feel ... This differs from spaghetti code with the uni-directional goto statement with its jump to some arbitrary label -- never to return to the calling spot. ... Hence 'structured programming' to make one monkeys shit look like every other monkeys shit, in the hope they will be able to recognise it and actually read it when one monkey is off sick from a surfeit of bananas. ...
    (comp.lang.php)
  • Re: problem in creating Services
    ... so called chief programmers came up with a list of programming rules. ... It would produce spaghetti code ... where is that spaghetti style? ... exit points and at all points the same cleanup would be required. ...
    (microsoft.public.vc.mfc)
  • Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science
    ... >> programmers. ... The distinctions invented to describe the hierarchy that ... >Spaghetti code, no comments, no specs and hair from multiple fixes. ... >of the ways I made my living was do archeological digs into legacy code ...
    (sci.cognitive)