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From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>
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To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
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Subject: Re: Internal clock
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[ moved to -chat ]

Terry Lambert writes:
> > Software 'engineering' is something I spent significant time studying,
> > and no matter how good you are maintenance makes up 90% of the 'time'
> > spent on code for most projects.  One could argue that the entire
> > FreeBSD project is doing 'maintenance' on the CSRG code tree.
> 
> I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying that maintenance time should be
> front-loaded by breaking the problem into cleanly divisable component
> areas, etc..

Easier said that done Kemosabe'.  If we all knew exactly what the code
was going to be used for, had all the knowledge we had going into the
project that we have at the backend, and how the market was going to
change we'd all be richer than Bill Gates.

The wave of the hand and simple answers simply doesn't cut it, just like
my silly example below.

> > Really, the issue of putting a man on Mars is designing a good space
> > ship, not actually building the darn ship.

And, if we design the space-ship correctly, it'll solve all of our
transportation problems since a space-ship is just a special purpose
'transportation' device.  So, if we break the problem up into cleanly
divisable component areas, it'll affect *all* vehicles we design from
that point on, then all of our transportation problems will go away.




Nate