[lug] Re: recycling code [WAS Fwd: NICHOLAS PETRELEY: "The Open Source" ]

[Scott A. Herod]

I wanted to throw my "Amen" in.

I wish that on Friday I had started re-writing the code I'm working
on now rather than just trying to use an existing Open Source project.
I'd be done now rather than trying to figure out why an undocumented,
500 line routine which has as its only white space, tabs and CRs, 
contains about 30 non-documented global variables, and which consists
of little more than "grep" can manage not to be reentrant.

Scott

rm at mamma.varadinet.de wrote:
> 
> Two remarks: no, in theory one doesn't have to rewrite from scratch.
> BUT: you have to admit that it's much harder to read a lot of
> 'foreign' code then to rewrite certain code from scratch. In an
> ideal world the existing code would be:
> 
>  - well written, meaning written to be understandable
>  - well documented
>  - constantly maintained. 

<snip>

>    Have you seen the number of zombie projects on sourceforge?
> 
> As harsh as it might sound, often rewriting is much more easy
> than code fixup.