I'm back

[H. S. Teoh]

On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 03:43:24PM -0800, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Thursday, November 22, 2012 15:36:58 H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > In theory, software is implemented according to the design that has
> > been carefully worked out beforehand. In practice, design documents
> > are written after the fact to describe the sorry mess that has gone
> > on before.
> 
> Or even more likely, no design documentation gets written at all...
[...]

Or any documentation at all.

I recall, with a shudder, how one fine day a high-priority Javascript
project (high-priority as in, it was due the week before it was given to
me) was dumped on my lap, consisting of a non-trivial class hierarchy
and bunch of modules of at least 3-4 layers of abstraction, with
absolutely no documentation whatsoever. No design docs, no code
comments, nothing. It was "read the code, pray you'll understand it all
in 3 days, implement the new features of questionable feasibility, and
hope it doesn't break". Some of the code involved 4-5 levels of nested
closures accessing badly-named global variables. You can imagine the
hilarity that ensues when the guy who wrote the mess leaves and a new
person comes in having no idea what the code is supposed to do.


T

-- 
If it tastes good, it's probably bad for you.