On Jul 8, 2004, at 5:13, chrilly wrote:
There is also the fact that these systems were mostly designed and
implemented before I was even born. Back then, >most designers
probably didn't even hear about modular design, object-oriented
programming, or perhaps even >something as simple as code reuse. Every
big old system is a mess because of that.
Dear boy, we old guys were also not completly stupid in these days.
Things have improved somewhat, but 1 million lines are still a big
nasty monster. E.g. also in a modular design one has to define the
interface between the modules. Nobody knows in advance exactly how this
interfaces should be. It is like an earthquake, if one detects during
development, that the defined interfaces are not practical. One
consequence is: Everyone avoids such changes, although no one is happy
with the interfaces and has the fealing that there should be something
changed. This is only done, if a major change is unavoidable.
First: Don't call me Dear Boy. Or would you have me call you Old Fart?
Your assumption that he would not have heard of modular design or object
orientation in those days, was more insulting than calling him an old
fart.