[TUHS] Discuss of style and design of computer programs from a user stand point

[khm@sciops.net (Kurt H Maier)]

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On Sat, May 06, 2017 at 09:18:57AM +0000, Michael Kjörling wrote:
>
> I would actually take that one step further: When you are writing     
> code, you are _first and foremost_ communicating with whatever human  
> will need to read or modify the code later. 
         
This can be, and is, taken too far.  It is currently fashionable in the
Ruby world to erect testing gantries that look like
       
describe 'service' do
  it 'is listening' do
    expect(port 443).to be_listening
  end
end
       
and then drag in a couple hundred thousand lines of extra code to make  
this cuteness approximate instructions for the computer.
       
It's all well and good to write for the person who comes behind you, but
at some point it will break, and the closer you've flown to this sun the
worse it will be for the poor sod who has to pick up the pieces.  I'd   
take durable code I have to work to understand over fragile artwork     
any day.
       
khm