Re: OT: Why is C so popular?
On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 19:18, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 01:08:56PM -0700, Mark Ferlatte wrote:
> > Ron Johnson said on Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 02:16:22PM -0500:
> > > With tight budgets and tight schedules, I've *never* seen a project
> > > rewritten.
> >
> > Rewriting from scratch is dangerous anyway; you exchange all of the
> > bugs you know about for a whole new set of bugs which you haven't
> > discovered yet. Better to improve what you've got. This can result in
> > a totally different codebase after a while, but at least you have been
> > able to test and release along the way.
>
> Amen, brother. I spend a fair bit of my time in Debian trying to stop
> people from rewriting things and getting them to fix existing code
> instead. It's an uphill struggle: for some people rewriting from scratch
> seems to be much sexier.
>
> I've seen maybe one or two occurrences where rewriting from scratch was
> actually worth it. Before that's the case, the existing code has to be a
> complete nightmare and you have to have a deadline to add some new
> feature or other to it. It does happen, but it is (and should be) rare.
Unfortunately, if the fundamental design is Really Flawed, then
incremental changes are impossible. Yet I also agree that rewriting
swaps old bug for new. There's a Catch-22 sometimes.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Johnson, Jr. ron.l.johnson@cox.net
Jefferson, LA USA
"Vanity, my favorite sin."
Larry/John/Satan, "The Devil's Advocate"
Reply to: