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Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way...

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BartC wrote:

> Good luck with that when your language requires you to write stuff like
> this:
>
> CRTIMP __p_sig_fn_t __cdecl __MINGW_NOTHROW    signal(int, __p_sig_fn_t);

Not sure how seriously to take you here ?   Taking what you say as written, it 
would appear that you spend your time working with Very Very Badly written code 
indeed.  For instance, there is no reason at all that a declaration such as the 
above would be hanging out loose for every person who read a typical passage of 
the code to have to grok.  It should be, and would be in any half-sensible 
application, properly encapsulated so that the vast (95%+) of the 
application/library/whatever code didn't depend on that, but rather on whatever 
it was (obviously application-specific) that you wanted to /use/ it for.

Oh and...

> If you think about it a lot more, then a book is nothing like a program, 
> other than they are both represented as text.

I didn't say that a program is like a book.  I agree that a book is linear 
where a typical program is massively non-linear.  My claim is that learning to 
program /well/ is, and not accidentally, like learning to write /well/.  And 
for the specific reason that they are both activities which are primarily about 
communication with other people.

But, FWIW, I'll note that an old friend of mine is an author (published, even 
won a minor award), and we have often been surprised at how many similarities 
there are between the process of conceiving, writing, and revising a novel and 
the various phases of programming.

    -- chris 

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If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... mike3 <mike4ty4@yahoo.com> - 2012-06-06 23:32 -0700
  Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-06-07 08:50 +0100
    Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-06-07 09:55 +0200
      Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-06-09 11:25 +0100
    Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... mike3 <mike4ty4@yahoo.com> - 2012-06-07 01:39 -0700
      Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-06-07 06:43 -0700
      Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-06-09 11:05 +0100
        Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-06-09 11:24 +0100
      Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-06-09 11:15 +0100
    Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-07 10:55 +0100
      Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2012-06-09 10:44 +0100
        Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-06-09 12:35 +0100
  Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net> - 2012-06-07 09:38 -0700
    Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... mike3 <mike4ty4@yahoo.com> - 2012-06-07 14:26 -0700
      Re: If "rigid rules" are the wrong way... Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net> - 2012-06-07 16:52 -0700

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