Well, my past experience with MPE source code tells me that yes, readability
matters most when someone who wrote source (say, a CSY labbie) intends
her/his code to be read later (support life is/was supposed to be 5 years)
by someone else (say, me, in my former life as an MPE support engineer).

So yes, whatever you write, you'd better have in mind that later, much
later, someone else with less exposure to your field of expertise will have
to read and maintain it. That's readability, that's technical documentation,
that's also a general inclination for clean stuff.

Christian Lheureux
Responsable du Departement Systemes et Reseaux / Head of Systems and
Networks Department
APPIC R.H.
business partner hp invent
Tel : +33-1-69-80-97-22   /   Fax : +33-1-69-80-97-14 / e-mail :
[log in to unmask]
"Le Groupe APPIC recrute, contactez nous !"



> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]De la
> part de Wirt Atmar
> Envoye : mardi 20 novembre 2001 19:11
> A : [log in to unmask]
> Objet : Re: [HP3000-L] picking a language
>
>
> Bruce writes exactly what I would have written if I had given
> any thought to
> the subject, so let me just repeat his comments here:
>
> > No, it's not the same thing. Programmers ought to be able to read
> >  programs even without much training in a specific
> language. Languages
> >  that meet that test -- ALGOL, FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC --
> tend to have long
> >  lives. Languages that violate that principle -- LISP, APL, SNOBOL,
> >  Smalltalk -- tend to be used only by tiny communities or
> fall by the
> >  wayside. I've written programs in all of the latter languages, and
> >  they're far more powerful than general-purpose languages
> like C or COBOL
> >  for certain tasks. They're also capable of handling
> ordinary business
> >  data processing. But their quirky syntax leaves
> uninitiated programmers
> >  in the dust.
> >
> >  I've now run across two companies who've had to throw away large
> >  investments in Perl code because it was utterly
> unmaintainable by anyone
> >  except the suddenly-departed original author. There are serious
> >  disadvantages from a longevity point of view to any language with a
> >  syntax that can't be understood without special training.
> I want to be
> >  able to have someone pick up any program that's important
> to my business
> >  and have some idea of what it does, whether or not they've
> had special
> >  training. Perl doesn't meet that test. I wish that LISP did, and
> >  especially Objective C. But I'll forego their power in
> order to make sure
> >  that someone can pick up the program in 15 years and
> figure out more or
> >  less what it's doing.
>
> Readability isn't just an option here with us. It's
> everything. Nothing gets
> written in a quirky, individualistic style. Everything is put
> together so
> that it can be read 20 years later by a
> moderately-well-trained high-school
> student.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
> * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
> * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
>

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *