[rescue] Sun memo regarding Java

[Sheldon T. Hall]

"Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes ...

> On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 07:21 AM, Lionel Peterson wrote:

["Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote ...]
> >> My company's main Java app hit 35,000 lines today, and most would
> >> still consider it a small app.
> >
> > Does that include comments? ;^)
>
>    Yes, but there aren't all that many.  Was there a point to this?

And today's pop-quiz here in CS 503 ...

Programmers generally avoid inserting comments into their code when writing
original works.  Most cite one of two popular reasons:

(a)  "Well-written code is self-documenting."

(b)  "If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read."

Later, maintenance programmers, charged with the task of updating or
debugging this code, frequently take the position:

(c)  "WTF?"

Your assignment - reconcile the positions held by proponents of view (a) and
view (b) with those asking (c).  You have 30 minutes.

-Shel