From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2003-11-21T04:15:02+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping" (was: Re: Strong Typing (Re: Managing metadata about attribute types)

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 02:35:05 +0900, Sean O'Dell wrote:
> Yes, because I don't know what sort of object has the #drive
> method. It's not an object I am familiar with, and I don't even
> know what #drive is supposed to do. An error message that like
> just says to me "something is very wrong, and you don't know
> what."

Forgive me for being boggled, Sean. That's typically the third thing
that I do (after looking to see if I've done anything stupid and
then looking in the documentation) and what I encourage developers
under my supervision to do. 

> Opening up the source and looking at the line won't necessarily
> tell you anything. You could be there for awhile looking around
> trying to figure out what the code does. It's not an efficient way
> to debug at all.

Ever used RogueWave tools.h++? It's not really well documented, and
I've had to open its source more than once in my career. This is an
*expensive* commercial package. I don't know what platform you
typically develop for, but this is *common* in Unix development.

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.11.20
                                         * 13.55.55