Re: IBM pushing Java

[nina jones <ddi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> other hand, some languages lend themselves to this better than others.
> As an example, I remember a COBOL program written by a fellow student
> in university 20 years ago.  It was the most easy to read program I'd
> ever seen and there were no comments in it.  This student graduated
> at the top of his class and I doubt if he ever wrote another COBOL
> program since!

i think some people's programming style is easier to follow than others.  
doesn't
really matter on the language.  well, maybe some!

years ago, we inherited a client that used a lady that did not do anything
straight forward.  in frustration, once i asked how on earth she handled fixing
problems.  they said she'd list her programs, go in the conference room, spread
them out, and color code them.

i like code that you can look at and follow, that has relevent, up to date
comments - with explainations before major sections of code as to what it's for,
and routines sectioned off.  and one more pet peeve - old commented out code.  
if
you don't need it, get rid of it!

this week i was in california, and had to debug a program written by our 
favorite
former employee (haha).  he'd done some modifications for them last summer, and
it had never worked correctly!   i had to weed thru 10 pages of tricky code,
without a single comment.  a 3 excedrin special.

nj


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