On Sun, Jun 15, 2003 at 07:47:32PM +0100, J.D. Hood wrote: > I suggest that the definition of 'preferred form for > making modifications' be information-theoretical. > > When source code is compiled into binary code there is a > loss of information, as indicated by the fact that you > cannot get the original source back, given only the binary > code. > > On the other hand, if there is a set of different forms > each of which is convertible into the others by means of > freely available tools then any member of the set is as > good as any other. What if the program is written using proprietary tools and formats, and translated into commented, maintainable C/java for release? (Not a straw man; the technologies are being developed and we're going to start seeing them over the next few years. One-dimensional text is not the most effective representation of a program, it's just the easiest to implement) -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing, `. `' | Imperial College, `- -><- | London, UK
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