4 ms·

Pretty much just size! There was about 20,000 lines of it, it's legacy code that has been gradually added to since the 1980s, so it would have taken a while to

Pretty much just size! There was about 20,000 lines of it, it's legacy code that has been gradually added to since the 1980s, so it would have taken a while to rewrite all the parts to work with each other. Perhaps some day though.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago
What's the code do? [physics grad level description would be fine] It must surely be generic equipment management, you're not running experiments in physics that are > 30 years old, surely?
- euyyn 9y ago
  Started in the 80s doesn't mean the code is 30 years old, as they keep adding to it and modifying it in Fortran. Plus most of the analysis part is probably just math routines that don't need modification ever after.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Doesn't mean it isn't c.37 years old either ... I think we need specifics to progress this conversation usefully.
walshemj 9y ago
Only 20k I have worked on bigger Fortran systems doing billing systems for a telco oddly enough.
rxhernandez 9y ago
20,000 lines of code really doesn't seem like that much. I probably output that much in about 2-3 months of biomedical research so there has to be more to it than that.
- coldtea 9y ago
  20,000 lines of code casually churned out in 2-3 months will be a nightmare to a) understand, b) maintain, much less to rewrite...
  - cocoablazing 9y ago
    It sounds like he’s talking about scripts generated for research, rather than code for components intended to be persistent.
    - rxhernandez 9y ago
      Precisely this.
- jlg23 9y ago
  >> legacy code that has been gradually added to since the 1980s > 20,000 lines of code really doesn't seem like that much. It's not "20k lines of code" but "n lines of code that grew organically over decades to 20k lines" - with the help of probably way more than 100 people who all are not trained as developers. I think it's a safe bet to say the current state only has a faint memory of being a consistent code base.
- geezerjay 9y ago
  > 20,000 lines of code really doesn't seem like that much. Once I spent close to a month hunting down a subtle but nasty bug in a number crunching module which was perhaps around 2k LoC. Writing code is very easy. Verifying and validating number crunching code is very hard and very time consuming.
- shitgoose 9y ago
  20k of fortran code is a lot. there are no beans/interfaces/adapters/mediators/listeners - just the code that does business.
- CalChris 9y ago
  20,000 lines of your code is one thing. 20,000 lines of someone else's code is another thing entirely. 20,000 lines of many other people's code can be insane.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

What's the code do? [physics grad level description would be fine] It must surely be generic equipment management, you're not running experiments in physics that are > 30 years old, surely?

euyyn 9y ago
Started in the 80s doesn't mean the code is 30 years old, as they keep adding to it and modifying it in Fortran. Plus most of the analysis part is probably just math routines that don't need modification ever after.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Doesn't mean it isn't c.37 years old either ... I think we need specifics to progress this conversation usefully.

walshemj 9y ago

Only 20k I have worked on bigger Fortran systems doing billing systems for a telco oddly enough.

rxhernandez 9y ago

20,000 lines of code really doesn't seem like that much. I probably output that much in about 2-3 months of biomedical research so there has to be more to it than that.

coldtea 9y ago
20,000 lines of code casually churned out in 2-3 months will be a nightmare to a) understand, b) maintain, much less to rewrite...
- cocoablazing 9y ago
  It sounds like he’s talking about scripts generated for research, rather than code for components intended to be persistent.
  - rxhernandez 9y ago
    Precisely this.
jlg23 9y ago
>> legacy code that has been gradually added to since the 1980s > 20,000 lines of code really doesn't seem like that much. It's not "20k lines of code" but "n lines of code that grew organically over decades to 20k lines" - with the help of probably way more than 100 people who all are not trained as developers. I think it's a safe bet to say the current state only has a faint memory of being a consistent code base.
geezerjay 9y ago
> 20,000 lines of code really doesn't seem like that much. Once I spent close to a month hunting down a subtle but nasty bug in a number crunching module which was perhaps around 2k LoC. Writing code is very easy. Verifying and validating number crunching code is very hard and very time consuming.
shitgoose 9y ago
20k of fortran code is a lot. there are no beans/interfaces/adapters/mediators/listeners - just the code that does business.
CalChris 9y ago
20,000 lines of your code is one thing. 20,000 lines of someone else's code is another thing entirely. 20,000 lines of many other people's code can be insane.