[DUG] Naming your code

[John Bird]

I am in the middle here - In porting the same apps over 20 years through
several operating systems and editors and programming environments and
source control systems and also reforming new companies along the way I have
came to believe that any documentation outside of the program source and
help files eventually just gets lost or hopelessly out of date.

Looking after large legacy systems with many modules which a number of
programmers had worked on it was always useful to know who did what in case
I wanted to follow up why something was done a certain way...as the
programmers concerned in the main were contactable.

Usually in the form of a comment block at the head of a module, who wrote
it, when, and any relevant technical descriptions of why it was implemented
this way.  When you spend much of your life maintaining other peoples code
you get very grateful for the professional and helpful people who do set
things out clearly, and have an option to chase them up to save time when
altering the routine.

The extreme example was one package where the variables had different names
and declarations from one program to another, the programmer concerned wrote
not one single comment in his code, and liked naming variables with names
like B320 B330 B340 etc.  He was a superb programmer who believed code
should be read to find what it does, and also liked reading object files
directly.....if you are lucky you wouldn't be maintaining his code, it was
hard to improve in all senses.

John


-----Original Message-----
From: delphi-bounces at ns3.123.co.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at ns3.123.co.nz] On
Behalf Of Richard Vowles
Sent: Friday, 5 May 2006 12:53 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: RE: [DUG] Naming your code


It should be in the version control check-in anyway so you know who to
blame. The only reason it isn't in my code is I can't be bothered putting it
there. It is there on templated code.

(a dedicated subversion user). 

How about people change subject lines to match what we are talking about.
---
Richard Vowles, Solutions Architect, Borland New Zealand
email: richard.vowles at borland.com
phone: +64-9-9184573
cell: +64-21-467747
other: MSN richard.vowles at borland.com, skype: rvowles
blog: http://www.usergroup.org.nz/blogs/selectBlog.html?id=39769

-----Original Message-----
From: delphi-bounces at ns3.123.co.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at ns3.123.co.nz]
On Behalf Of Kyley Harris
Sent: Thursday, 4 May 2006 11:42 p.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: RE: [DUG] In case you're interested (or buy stuff)

Correct. Many companies that rely on contractors to fulfill work do not want
temp employess, etc to see a name, and go tell the competition who they
should contact for good design work. So in that case it is valid to request
unsigned work. If you really want to assert that you wrote something. Get a
reference in writing on letterhead that cannot be disputed by future
managers, employees etc. Get the letter to state unequivocally what input
you had such as design, implementation, delployment. NEVER rely on an
interviewer calling someone. I make a point of providing no verbal
references unless that person giving the ref would die for me, or close :D

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