4 ms·

if I may quote some scripture: "Gerald Weinberg tells the story of a programmer who was flown to Detroit to help debug a troubled program. The programmer worke

if I may quote some scripture: "Gerald Weinberg tells the story of a programmer who was flown to Detroit to help debug a troubled program. The programmer worked with the team who had developed the program and concluded after several days that the situation was hopeless. On the flight home, he mulled over the situation and realized what the problem was. By the end of the flight, he had an outline for the new code. He tested the code for several days and was about to return to Detroit when he got a telegram saying that the project was canceled because the program was impossible to write. He headed back to Detroit anyway and convinced the executives that the project could be completed. Then he had to convince the project's original programmers. They listened to his presentation, and when he'd finished, the creator of the old system asked, "And how long does your program take?" "That varies, but about ten seconds per input." "Aha! But my program takes only one second per input." The veteran leaned back, satisfied that he'd stumped the upstart. The other programmers seemed to agree, but the new programmer wasn't intimidated." "Yes, but your program doesn't work. If mine doesn't have to work, I can make it run instantly." - _Code Complete_, pp.595-596

gruseom 17y ago
I love that story and have quoted it many times (though, Code Complete? really, just read Weinberg). But it doesn't apply here. Gmail search certainly works. It just doesn't have every feature.
- discojesus 17y ago
  Gmail search certainly works. It just doesn't have every feature. It's not "completely broken," but no hits for a query of "zag" in an email that contains "zagg" comes uncomfortably close to "doesn't work." (FWIW, I use gmail and haven't had any huge problems with search, although I have had to do way more work to find something than I would expect given that it's from Google). Code Complete? really, just read Weinberg 'twas just a quick copy and paste from my fortune file. Although as far as I'm concerned there ain't nothing wrong with Code Complete.
  - gruseom 17y ago
    there ain't nothing wrong with Code Complete It's ok but relatively mediocre, and in my observation usually indicates a programmer who hasn't sought out better sources.
    - discojesus 17y ago
      in my observation usually indicates a programmer who hasn't sought out better sources. Those being?
      - gruseom 17y ago
        There are zillions, obviously. What do you want, a list? I don't know, SICP, CLRS, Knuth? Non-mainstream languages? Functional programming? For that matter, a single classic CS paper that wasn't assigned as homework? Code Complete, its grounding in software-engineering literature notwithstanding, isn't very deep.
        dagw 17y ago
        I consider the lack of depth in Code Complete one of its great strength. You couldn't hand Knuth to a newbie programmer expect them to get anything useful out of it, whereas Code Complete will teach him a lot really useful things he can use his entire career. If you've been working as a programmer for 12 years it probably won't teach you too many new things, but if you've been working for 12 weeks it is a great book.
      - wcarss 17y ago
        I don't really have an opinion to state on the actual discussion at hand, but I figured I'd toss in an old link which contains what some of "those" might be: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2007-March/000849.html http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2007-March/0... Javier Kragen Sitaker's article/mail "My Evolution as a Programmer", recounts one coder's his growth as a programmer, career, and exposure to a variety of books throughout. It's really an excellent read, and contains some comparisons between a few good books - particularly Code Complete and The Pracice of Programming. I quote, During this time, I read "The Practice of Programming", which is a lot like "Code Complete", but shorter and much higher in quality. I had read the same authors' "The Elements of Programming Style" back in 1995, on much the same subjects, but that book is nearly unreadable today --- it's written in PL/1 and FORTRAN IV. TPoP, aside from being written with modern programming languages, also contains insights from several decades more of the authors' experience. -- The author in question is Brian Kernighan. Anyrate, I leave any interested person to go check the article out, if you haven't seen it already.
ajg1977 17y ago
He got a... telegram? Safe to assume this isn't a recent tale :) (not that its age should detract anything of course, I just found the obvious historic reference amusing).

gruseom 17y ago

I love that story and have quoted it many times (though, Code Complete? really, just read Weinberg). But it doesn't apply here. Gmail search certainly works. It just doesn't have every feature.

discojesus 17y ago
Gmail search certainly works. It just doesn't have every feature. It's not "completely broken," but no hits for a query of "zag" in an email that contains "zagg" comes uncomfortably close to "doesn't work." (FWIW, I use gmail and haven't had any huge problems with search, although I have had to do way more work to find something than I would expect given that it's from Google). Code Complete? really, just read Weinberg 'twas just a quick copy and paste from my fortune file. Although as far as I'm concerned there ain't nothing wrong with Code Complete.
- gruseom 17y ago
  there ain't nothing wrong with Code Complete It's ok but relatively mediocre, and in my observation usually indicates a programmer who hasn't sought out better sources.
  - discojesus 17y ago
    in my observation usually indicates a programmer who hasn't sought out better sources. Those being?
    - gruseom 17y ago
      There are zillions, obviously. What do you want, a list? I don't know, SICP, CLRS, Knuth? Non-mainstream languages? Functional programming? For that matter, a single classic CS paper that wasn't assigned as homework? Code Complete, its grounding in software-engineering literature notwithstanding, isn't very deep.
      - dagw 17y ago
        I consider the lack of depth in Code Complete one of its great strength. You couldn't hand Knuth to a newbie programmer expect them to get anything useful out of it, whereas Code Complete will teach him a lot really useful things he can use his entire career. If you've been working as a programmer for 12 years it probably won't teach you too many new things, but if you've been working for 12 weeks it is a great book.
    - wcarss 17y ago
      I don't really have an opinion to state on the actual discussion at hand, but I figured I'd toss in an old link which contains what some of "those" might be: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2007-March/000849.html http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2007-March/0... Javier Kragen Sitaker's article/mail "My Evolution as a Programmer", recounts one coder's his growth as a programmer, career, and exposure to a variety of books throughout. It's really an excellent read, and contains some comparisons between a few good books - particularly Code Complete and The Pracice of Programming. I quote, During this time, I read "The Practice of Programming", which is a lot like "Code Complete", but shorter and much higher in quality. I had read the same authors' "The Elements of Programming Style" back in 1995, on much the same subjects, but that book is nearly unreadable today --- it's written in PL/1 and FORTRAN IV. TPoP, aside from being written with modern programming languages, also contains insights from several decades more of the authors' experience. -- The author in question is Brian Kernighan. Anyrate, I leave any interested person to go check the article out, if you haven't seen it already.

ajg1977 17y ago

He got a... telegram? Safe to assume this isn't a recent tale :) (not that its age should detract anything of course, I just found the obvious historic reference amusing).