[lug] Software Projects as well....

[Chris Wade]

Hear, hear.  I'm in the middle of (as we speak) documenting a ton of old PHP
code, both so I can pass it on to a maintainer and so I can remember how it
works next time I need to modify something.  One of the problems I've found
is that if you don't plan to make your code readable and be diligent about
it in the first place, it can be a real bear to go back and do it as an
afterthought.  I think the reason a lot of bad code stays that way (assuming
it works) is that no one wants to undertake the project of rewriting it more
cleanly and possibly introducing new bugs... if I could do this project over
again, I'd design it much more sanely from the beginning, but, c'est la
vie...

> I think that for a lot of us, apparently including Dennis Ritchie,
> there is a large amount of "been there, done that" wrt cute stuff.  I
> am (= have become) a total bigot over code Readability, where the
> Capitalisation is intended to imply commentary, comprehensibilty,
> getting over the whole story to the next maintainer, etc.  I believe
> that the most important characteristic of code is its Readability.
> Readability is more important even than correct operation.  And I bet
> you can work out why 8-)
> 
> dajo
> 
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