From: Brian Marick Date: 2001-07-03T02:28:32+09:00 Subject: [ruby-talk:17164] Re: Something strange with Ruby's At 09:49 AM 6/26/01 , you wrote: >Interestingly enough, I find it much faster to write code in >dynamically typed languages like Lisp (or these days, Ruby of course). >However, for reading other people's code, I find it much easier and >faster to make sense of it if it is written in a clean statically >typed language like Java. This is especially true for a large >application (e.g. > 100 classes). What makes code readable is a complicated thing. For me, it feels as if minor things like naming conventions and layout conventions matter more than they should. One of the things I like about ruby is the_more_readable_underscore_convention. WhenILookAtJavaOrSmalltalkCode, my initial visual impression is of density, difficult reading ahead. Does that really make it harder for me to make sense of code? Don't know. However, you've given me a chance to plug an OOPSLA workshop that Ward Cunningham, Andy Hunt, Dave Thomas, and I will be hosting at OOPSLA, two days after the Ruby conference (and relevant to this mailing list because, well, anything Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt do is relevant, right?) It's called "Software Archaeology: Understanding Large Systems". Here's the abstract: How do you come to grips with 1,000,000 lines of code right away? Programmers are often given a large system they�ve not seen before, built by people they don�t know, touched by many people since, documented sketchily if at all. They�re told to improve it. Their task might be to fix a bug, add a feature, or complete a refactoring. They are under time pressure, so they need to minimize the total time spent learning and the time spent improving. In this workshop, we will share techniques and approaches for understanding enough about a lot of code in not much time. We are concerned not just with speed, but also with confidence: how can you know you�ve made an improvement, not made the system worse? URL for more details: OOPSLA: -- Brian Marick, marick@testing.com www.testing.com - Software testing services and resources www.testingcraft.com - Where software testers exchange techniques www.visibleworkings.com - Adequate understanding of system internals