From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from holly.cam.harlequin.co.uk ([193.128.4.58]) by hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <24628>; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:21:45 -0500 Received: from propos.long.harlequin.co.uk (propos.long.harlequin.co.uk [193.128.93.50]) by holly.cam.harlequin.co.uk (8.8.4/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA02460; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 15:20:56 GMT Received: from [193.128.93.141] (dynamic-house2.long.harlequin.co.uk [193.128.93.141]) by propos.long.harlequin.co.uk (8.8.4/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA14265; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 15:20:21 GMT X-Sender: richard@mailhost.long.harlequin.co.uk Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <9703031909.AA28293@nova.netapp.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:22:03 -0500 To: byron@netapp.com (Byron Rakitzis) From: Richard Brooksby Subject: Conceptual Integrity (Re: Update for Debian shells/rc-1.4-2) Cc: rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu, schwartz@cse.psu.edu Byron Rakitzis wrote: > That being said, I don't want to see rc unravel because of lack of > maintenance, and I would like to try to put together the fixes from the > last while and officially release it, so it gets picked up by the GNU > distrib and so on. I am more convinced than ever. Conceptual integrity is central to product quality. Having a system architect is the most important single step toward conceptual integrity... After teaching a software engineering laboratory more than 20 times, I came to insist that student teams as small as four people choose a manager, and a separate architect. -- Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month (20th Anniversary Edition), 1995 Imo, someone needs to be in charge of rc, so that it doesn't get randomly hacked on by all and sundry. Letting it fly free with the other GNU tools is almost a guarantee of loss of conceptual integrity. As a long time user of rc I appreciate its quality, and would like to see quality maintained. Just voicing my concern. --- Richard Brooksby Leader, Manager, and Developer / Memory Management / Harlequin Tel. Int. +44 1954 785451 (voice) +44 1954 785444 (fax)