[COFF] [SPAM] Re: [TUHS] Algol 68 and Unix (was cron and at ...)

[Larry McVoy]

On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 04:10:03PM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 1:00 PM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> > I think it is part of being really smart, it's a puzzle for them and they
> > "win" if they can do something clever.  I always replied "It is write once,
> > read many.  Optimize for reads".
> >
> Amen to that bro.
> 
> As a side note, I will say there is another vector to this same curse.
> It's the new guy coming into the project and deciding what is there is
> crap, they can not understand and they can do a better job.   

Source management to the rescue.  I hired an extremely smart guy (he
reads papers on string theory, the physics ones, for fun).  Taught him
how to use our tools.  Gave him a bug to fix.  He looks at the source
file and goes "This is crap, I'm gonna rewrite it so it is clean".
Then remembers I showed him how he could see how the file evolved.
So he looks at the first version of the file.  It is *exactly* what he
was going to write.  Huh.  He starts going through the history.  Oh,
this wart is for IRIX.  This wart is for windows 2000 that reuses PIDs
right away.  This wart is for NFS.  Etc.

In the end, he added another wart to fix the bug and left the file alone.
I did say he was smart.