4 ms·
I wonder if writing (bad?) software can also be toil. Like if I need to change the spelling or add a new configuration setting and I need to make sure to use t
by pooper 4y ago
I wonder if writing (bad?) software can also be toil.
Like if I need to change the spelling or add a new configuration setting and I need to make sure to use the same spelling in three places because they are all "stringly(sic) typed", is that toil?
- juancb 4y agoIf we ignore the value judgement and instead look at maintaining a sufficiently large codebase then, yes. In the below paper an example given is migrating from one API to another. The paper describes a semantically-aware large-scale tool for refactoring a Google sized codebase using map-reduce. Given the externally visible churn in Google products it isn't much of a stretch to imagine they have similar or worse internal churn. In fact I have heard from xooglers that it was common place to internally have competing systems in different states of development and adoption. https://research.google.com/pubs/archive/41342.pdf https://research.google.com/pubs/archive/41342.pdf