Admitting to shortcuts, any other fessups?

Post #7,603 by tablizer 9/3/01 10:03:38 PM Reply	Admitting to shortcuts, any other fessups? I was once in charge of modifying some spaghetti code. There was a function or method (I don't remember) called something like Validate(). Based on the code, it was only supposed to return a Boolean value after writing the error messages to a structure of some kind. However, in some cases it also popped up an error message. For some reason it got called twice under certain actions. Thus, it popped up twice if there were errors. To get rid of it I changed the Validate function to write to a global variable with a time-stamp. If the next call was within a certain time difference, say 3 seconds, from the last one, then it bypassed the error message. The ideal course of action would be to figure out why it was being called twice. However, the more I searched the more spaghetti I found. Thus, I took the shortcut. I did not feel that bad because the program already was a victim of consultant-itice. It would probably be 1/5 the size if written properly. If I took the time to do it right, I likely would not have been given the credit, and chewed out for taking so long. Besides, I probably would have broke 25 other things if I tried to fix that without the kludge. ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,630 by boxley 9/4/01 10:59:40 AM Reply	sure had a program that was spagged and undocumented except for things like # I am going to kill that fat bitch tommorow. scary stuff. Lottsa variables that were passed with bad values so if something was causing a problem I would explain why then provide them with a choice, I can scrub the variable or go back thru the code and fix all segments. The answer was usually cut n snip. thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #7,646 by CRConrad 9/4/01 2:07:19 PM Reply	Yes: I all too often used to use Delphi the wrong way. That is, as if it were Visual Basic; placing too much of my code in event handlers, and not in some nice clean encapsulated objects. Problem is, that's the easiest way to use the IDE, you just kind of slide into it... But it gets messy as your project grows. So I try not to do that too much any more. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #7,687 by tablizer 9/4/01 9:50:35 PM Reply	tryin' to start sumpin mista? That is, as if it were Visual Basic; placing too much of my code in event handlers, and not in some nice clean encapsulated objects..... Problem is, that's the easiest way to use the IDE, you just kind of slide into it... But it gets messy as your project grows. In VB if the code gets a little long or needs to be triggered from multiple spots, then I put it in a routine and call that routine from the event snippet. How does OO improve on that? You are making a false dichotomy here between big event code and OOP. ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,695 by static 9/4/01 10:49:48 PM Reply	Let's not get too side-tracked, hmm? I'm guessing, but I would imagine going OO in Delphi would make a lot of things more "automatic" for you WRT to handling events nicely and elegantly. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #7,775 by tablizer 9/6/01 12:32:28 AM Reply	Yeah, let's not get side-tracked with OO BS ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,781 by pwhysall 9/6/01 2:40:03 AM Reply	Play nice, ya hear? -- Peter Shill For Hire
Post #7,791 by CRConrad 9/6/01 9:03:13 AM Reply	So much for participating in YOUR discussion, on YOUR terms. Next time I seem to get an uncontrollable urge to talk to Captain Clarity as if he were actually a human being... Somebody please hit me upside the head with a cast-iron frying pan or something, OK? Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Ought To Know Fucking Everything About Talking To Bryce -- He Must'a Just'a Forgot...
Post #7,841 by pwhysall 9/6/01 1:27:01 PM Reply	Bryce Blipvert `YousesthotclubbygroupthinkOOnountaxonomyproofmetricshopcounts functionpointsASPbullshctbOOlcrapLOCp/rdicho tomyWAHIWANTMYMOMMYITSALLSCARYANDNEWIWANTMYXBASEBACK whydoesntanyonelovemeanymorecustombizappsSCGUIXWindowssucksbutIveneverusedit Ilovetablesme` -- Peter Shill For Hire
Post #7,883 by tablizer 9/6/01 9:56:58 PM Reply	Reminds me of long, hierarchy-happy class names ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,888 by static 9/6/01 10:38:03 PM Reply	Well, I avoid them, too. OO has its uses. And it's abuses. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #7,882 by tablizer 9/6/01 9:54:58 PM Reply	Your wording was askin' for it "....placing too much of my code in event handlers, and not in some nice clean encapsulated objects." You could have simply said: "....placing too much of my code in event handlers." ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,891 by wharris2 9/6/01 11:07:35 PM Reply	Re: Your wording was askin' for it But isn't modern Basic.net supposed to be all about clean encapsulated handling? French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
Post #7,916 by CRConrad 9/7/01 5:34:28 AM Reply	Oh shut up, you freaking moron. "....placing too much of my code in event handlers, and not in some nice clean encapsulated objects." You could have simply said: "....placing too much of my code in event handlers." Yeah, sure. But, hey, if we're goin to go down that road, why be that specific?!? I could have simply said: "writing bad code". But then what would be the use of posting it? If I'd done that, wouldn't somebody have accused me of being "vague Vague VAGUE!!!"...? So no, if I were smarter, I'd have just not posted anything at all. Not in reply to you, anyway, you fucking idiot. Now do the world a favour and piss off and die. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #7,925 by Arkadiy 9/7/01 10:29:22 AM Reply	Now, now... Would you shut up if someone asked you in such a polite way? Here comes a looong thread.
Post #7,926 by pwhysall 9/7/01 10:59:11 AM Reply	Context We've had three long years of this. Bryce hates an ill-defined thing he calls "OO". Bryce likes XBase and procedural languages of that ilk. So far, so good, so what? The problem is that Bryce thinks that everyone else wants to hear how inferior, overhyped, mis-sold, bloated, verbose, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, OO is by comparison to procedural methods. (Actually, to be perfectly accurate, Bryce invented something called "P/R", where the R is for "Relational", as if procedural programs talked to no other kind of database and OO programs talked to anything but). He persistently trolls comp.object as if the denizens of that newsgroup have some kind of responsibility to "prOOve" that the aforementioned ill-defined (and clearly ill-understood by Bryce) "OO" is better than his precious "P/R" and "TOP" (Table-Oriented-Programming) methods. And he thinks they want to hear it again, and again, and again, and again. He won't stop. It's not enough for anyone to say "I don't care what you use, Bryce, I don't WANT to program procedurally". And that, coupled with the fact that he's astoundingly resistant to the cluestick on any subject he gets involved with, is why he receives the reaction from people like CRC that he does. Don't be thinking this came out of the blue, because it didn't. -- Peter Shill For Hire
Post #7,940 by Arkadiy 9/7/01 1:14:59 PM Reply	Re: Context I've been watching this for more than three years. I am aware of all the "pleasant" properties that you mentioned. I am just trying to point out that the best way to prvent a long tirade by Bryce is not to scream "Shut Up!" but to stop talking altogether.
Post #7,947 by tablizer 9/7/01 3:35:37 PM Reply	Re: "p/r" >> (Actually, to be perfectly accurate, Bryce invented something called "P/R", where the R is for "Relational", as if procedural programs talked to no other kind of database and OO programs talked to anything but). << Only approximately 10 to 20 percent of comp.object regulars complain about the "p/r" suite as a reference to a technique. Thus, you seem a minority. Yes, you can connect OO to RDBMS, but they tend to overlap and fight over territory. ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,945 by tablizer 9/7/01 3:29:01 PM Reply	reply >> But, hey, if we're goin to go down that road, why be that specific?!? << You make it sound like an all-or-nothing thing. You gave no specifics of how OO is helping, so why even mention OO? Too much code in events snippets is a poor practice regardless of paradigm (except maybe by some XP extremists). >> Now do the world a favour and piss off and die. << Bordering on a physical threat. (Is he like this in real life? He reminds me of a redneck in a red pickup that I flipped off once for cutting in front of me. Yosemite Pickup Sam.) ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,685 by static 9/4/01 9:40:12 PM Reply	What programmer doesn't? I one wrote a very clever DOS program to find all local drives that were writable and permanent. It had a collection of options to control what to do once it had put this drive list together - but the interface between main() where the options were parsed, and the rest of the program was a function with a long list of parameters... Yah, it was real tacky. But I got lazy. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #7,746 by mhuber 9/5/01 3:05:56 PM Reply	What artisan or craftsman of any kind doesn't? Well, I'll tell you: perfectionists who never complete anything. Like me, when I don't keep those tendencies at bay through strict and painful self-control that is a perfectionism of another kind. White guys in suits know best - Pat McCurdy
Post #7,778 by tonytib 9/6/01 1:16:08 AM Reply	And sometimes their "garbage" is quite good for example, IIRC, Tchaivoksky thought the Nutcracker was a real hack. Tony

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