Re: [dev] Conversation with Anselm R. Garbe of suckless.org

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 3:22 PM, frederic <fdubois76_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> Anticipating changes in the code is a generally a bad idea, because your
> predictions are likely to fail

This can't be repeated often enough. Your predictions are not likely
to fail, they are *bound to crumble in an epic implosion of pure
fail*.

Not falling into the pitfall of trying to anticipate future changes in
code is surprisingly *hard*.

The only way to fight against it is to keep your code as simple as
possible, and avoid any speculative code as if it had come from
between RMS's toes. Fortunately this turns out to be the best way to
make code easier to change later on!

Peace

uriel

> - but the extra work and the extra code costs
> you something. In my experience, focusing on good design is generally
> enough:
> it allows you to make the requested changes in an acceptable time.
>
>> Also, I would like to know, what do people on this list feel about type
>> checking in general? A lot of language research in academia focuses on
>> typing constructs when at the same time the industry seems to be favoring
>> scripting languages and "duck" typing for productivity. What do you think?
>
> I favour static typing because of the extra safety and optimisations; it
> also help
> communications between programmers at source level (when the types are not
> automatically
> inferred, that is). I detest those dynamic languages with which a typo in
> the name of a variable
> makes your app blow at runtime (if you're lucky).
>
>
Received on Fri Sep 18 2009 - 21:46:35 UTC