FreeLists / arachne / [arachne] Re: code deletions :(((

[Jason and Ornumar Dodd <jasorn@xxxxxxxxx>]

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

Ray Andrews wrote:
>     
>     > Without SSL and Javascript support the state of the code just doesn't
>     > matter.
>     >   
>     That's the point IMO.
> With the state of the old code, SSL and JS will never happen. 
> Fixing the one makes the others possible.    
>   
Not sure if you're right about this but this is the gist of a reply I 
saw some time ago to the question of "What about these?"  What do the 
rest of you say?  Is SSL and JS out of the question with the main trunk? 
>     
> Glenn's philosophy:    
>     
>     >> I have been working with this code for almost 3 years.
>     >> Q) How much of the code that I started with did I delete ?
>     >> A) None of it.
>     >> That's right... absolutely no deletions were ever done.
>     
> ... and he's entitled to it, but few programmers agree. Most of us
> see working code as working code. Naturaly older versions are kept
> for reference.    
>     
>     >> If we do not learn from history... we are destined to repeat the same 
>     >> By seeing how a particular section of code was before and now is...
>     >> This helps a programmer to better understand why the change was made.
>     
> All true, but that's what archives are for.    
Again, this fuss is all about how long to keep commented out code in 
before having a 'purge the comments' release?!  Err, I thought it was 
accepted best practice that you'd keep them in until it such a time as 
they got unmanageable and then you'd have a 'purge the comments' of 
either all the commented out code or all the commented out code past a 
certain date release and then refer to the archive if need be for the 
old commented out stuff.  I'm working on a program at work that needs 
such a purging right now actually.
But really, if the comments are that bothersome, why are you using an 
editor that doesn't let you mask them out?  And if not having them is 
that bothersome, why can't you refer to the archive?
I thought the difference was along the lines of, "If you do this it'll 
save 3 cycles!"  and "But I want those 3 cycles!".  Or, "Look, I made 
the page render 3 nano seconds faster!" and "But if the page renders 
faster, I don't have time to get a coffee!"  Rather it's about "I can't 
read the code with all the !@#$% commented out code!" and "I can't tell 
who did what and why because there is no commented out code and I can't 
refer to the archive cause I'm developing in a one 'window' environment 
and can't refer to the archive."
Since I've heard mention they're not compatible with one another, I know 
there is more to it.  But given the threads in the earlier post from 
2004 or so, the above comments, and my own personal experience on 
development teams, I get the feeling this comment question might have 
been the spark for the fork.  Say it isn't so!

                 Arachne at FreeLists                  
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