In defense of spaghetti code. *ducks*
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Then you should know better.
Jeremy Falcon
I do know better. Much better. When I was a less experienced developer, I used to refuse to write expedient code like this, and my projects would suffer in cases where it was called for, particularly given that a lot of abstracted tends code to not survive contact with real world changes. Again, we have a disagreement. Not only that, a lot more programmers here seem to agree with me than with you, so maybe this doesn't have so much to do with what I don't know or lack of experience, and again, a lot more to do with us simply disagreeing.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Knowing why this is a bad idea separates the seniors from those who think they are seniors but are not. Even on the off chance you can make sense of spaghetti, in a year or two it'll be harder if you come back to it. If it's handed off to another dev, it'll be harder.
Perhaps I wasn't clear in my original comment, but I tried to be explicit about the low cost of a rewrite. There is no justification for spending $1000 to possibly save $1000 down the road. It makes no sense. There's little justification for even spending $500 to again, possibly save $1000 down the road when the downside is that you go dark in terms of client visibility as you're developing the framework in the alternative. Edit: What we have is a fundamental disagreement, which you're trying to paint as hubris, and that's insulting. I think my contributions here speak for themselves, as well as my extensive history of successful development projects. I wish you'd be a little bit more circumspect about what you write here. It would be nice to keep it civil. :)
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
There is no justification for spending $1000 to possibly save $1000 down the road. It makes no sense.
Despite needing a diagram? Something isn't adding up. Not sure how many people you've employed before but $500-$1K is a joke. Seems that the diagram would take longer than the code according to you. Which makes no sense. People don't diagram something that takes 1-2 days to develop.
honey the codewitch wrote:
I wish you'd be a little bit more circumspect about what you write here. It would be nice to keep it civil.
I'm not being uncivil. I'm just challenging you. If saying a senior programmer knows why this is a bad idea is being uncivil in your book, then that's just oversensitivity. I could also say that always arguing with people (this is where you say you're not) is also being uncivil. But, this is the Internet. Arguing is a way of life here. This is where you say you're just defending your position. And so am I. But, don't make it seem like I'm a bad guy here because I speak of what a senior should know. But don't worry, this is easily solvable. I'll just stop replying to your click baits. :)
Jeremy Falcon
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If comments get stale, that's not the fault of comments but the developer.
To be clear, this is what I was talking about when I brought up blame. When you're assigning a fault to someone that's blame. And again, I don't think it's productive. People make mistakes. Code gets stale. It happens to everyone. My comment was about maintenance.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
This is going nowhere. You have more time to argue than I have a desire to be here. Tootles.
Jeremy Falcon
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honey the codewitch wrote:
There is no justification for spending $1000 to possibly save $1000 down the road. It makes no sense.
Despite needing a diagram? Something isn't adding up. Not sure how many people you've employed before but $500-$1K is a joke. Seems that the diagram would take longer than the code according to you. Which makes no sense. People don't diagram something that takes 1-2 days to develop.
honey the codewitch wrote:
I wish you'd be a little bit more circumspect about what you write here. It would be nice to keep it civil.
I'm not being uncivil. I'm just challenging you. If saying a senior programmer knows why this is a bad idea is being uncivil in your book, then that's just oversensitivity. I could also say that always arguing with people (this is where you say you're not) is also being uncivil. But, this is the Internet. Arguing is a way of life here. This is where you say you're just defending your position. And so am I. But, don't make it seem like I'm a bad guy here because I speak of what a senior should know. But don't worry, this is easily solvable. I'll just stop replying to your click baits. :)
Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Despite needing a diagram?
I already have a diagram, which I made the code closely follow.
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Not sure how many people you've employed before but $500-$1K is a joke.
You've maybe never done embedded? Projects don't sprawl when you have kilobytes of RAM and less than 1MB to store your code.
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
I'm just challenging you.
I'm sorry but that's false. If you were just challenging me you wouldn't be insinuating things like I think I'm a senior developer when I'm not - that's insulting, and it's nonsense. You should know better.
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
I could also say that always arguing with people (this is where you say you're not) is also being uncivil.
There's nothing uncivil about a debate. This is about the statements you made that specifically did not further it. I stand by what I wrote.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Despite needing a diagram?
I already have a diagram, which I made the code closely follow.
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
Not sure how many people you've employed before but $500-$1K is a joke.
You've maybe never done embedded? Projects don't sprawl when you have kilobytes of RAM and less than 1MB to store your code.
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
I'm just challenging you.
I'm sorry but that's false. If you were just challenging me you wouldn't be insinuating things like I think I'm a senior developer when I'm not - that's insulting, and it's nonsense. You should know better.
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
I could also say that always arguing with people (this is where you say you're not) is also being uncivil.
There's nothing uncivil about a debate. This is about the statements you made that specifically did not further it. I stand by what I wrote.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
You're missing the point. Thus, this is going nowhere nor will it. It's just another pointless argument. I'm gonna go live my life now.
Jeremy Falcon
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You're missing the point. Thus, this is going nowhere nor will it. It's just another pointless argument. I'm gonna go live my life now.
Jeremy Falcon
Solid plan.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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This is going nowhere. You have more time to argue than I have a desire to be here. Tootles.
Jeremy Falcon
Hello? You're the one that started arguing with *me*. I'm simply defending my position. Not only that, you couldn't keep it to debate, and had to insult my professional abilities and experience.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Hello? You're the one that started arguing with *me*. I'm simply defending my position. Not only that, you couldn't keep it to debate, and had to insult my professional abilities and experience.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Nope. Wrong. And a senior should know better.
Jeremy Falcon
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Nope. Wrong. And a senior should know better.
Jeremy Falcon
That doesn't even make any sense. You're seriously arguing that I'm the one that started arguing with you? :laugh: Okay man. Get on with your life.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I can make the argument that spaghetti code is the better solution in this case. Creating a general-purpose framework tends to hide the logic. At least when you came back at some future time you only have to understand the spaghetti, and not a framework as well. I think YAGNI and KISS both apply here. Obviously the answer is different if you're tailoring the spaghetti for multiple solutions.
Software Zen:
delete this;To me spaghetti code is basically like a messy room you don't clean up. Doesn't mean you need to make a framework, but ya know... at least make the bed.
Jeremy Falcon
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That doesn't even make any sense. You're seriously arguing that I'm the one that started arguing with you? :laugh: Okay man. Get on with your life.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
You're not stopping with the replies... you can have the last word if arguing online is that important to you.
Jeremy Falcon
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You're not stopping with the replies... you can have the last word if arguing online is that important to you.
Jeremy Falcon
At this point I think you're here to troll. :~
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I ran into an issue recently on a professional embedded project, and that was this: In translating the flow diagrams to code, there were so many conditions around state changes and such that my options were to either abstract the flow with some sort of generalized framework, or cook some spaghetti code. I chose the latter. Why? Simple. The actual effort if anything would be about equal, or favor the spaghetti approach. More importantly, progress remains visible with the spaghetti approach rather than the abstract flow framework which requires a lot of up front design and work without progress visible to the client. Finally, this is embedded code, where a rewrite is maybe a grand or two $USD, on the outside, assuming not a lot of reuse. It would cost at least half that to develop a simple framework, which might make things more maintainable, but questionable in terms of how effortlessly one can make changes (whereas maintainability is more about stepping away for a month and being able to pick it up again, mostly - or someone else picking up your code). It's all a matter of robbing peter to pay paul. The bottom line here is that while we may chase perfect code, and "best practices" that's not always the most effective technique for keeping the lights on. Flame away.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
To even admit that I would write spaghetti code knowingly is counter to every fibre in my being. I was the first in my company, way back when, to be asked what I thought of "structured programming"; i.e. no "go to's". I wrote the first "structured program" and never looked back.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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To even admit that I would write spaghetti code knowingly is counter to every fibre in my being. I was the first in my company, way back when, to be asked what I thought of "structured programming"; i.e. no "go to's". I wrote the first "structured program" and never looked back.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
The spec was spaghetti, so my choice was to design directly to spec, or try to abstract it. I chose the former, and I'm pretty happy with the result. Including coming in under budget.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I ran into an issue recently on a professional embedded project, and that was this: In translating the flow diagrams to code, there were so many conditions around state changes and such that my options were to either abstract the flow with some sort of generalized framework, or cook some spaghetti code. I chose the latter. Why? Simple. The actual effort if anything would be about equal, or favor the spaghetti approach. More importantly, progress remains visible with the spaghetti approach rather than the abstract flow framework which requires a lot of up front design and work without progress visible to the client. Finally, this is embedded code, where a rewrite is maybe a grand or two $USD, on the outside, assuming not a lot of reuse. It would cost at least half that to develop a simple framework, which might make things more maintainable, but questionable in terms of how effortlessly one can make changes (whereas maintainability is more about stepping away for a month and being able to pick it up again, mostly - or someone else picking up your code). It's all a matter of robbing peter to pay paul. The bottom line here is that while we may chase perfect code, and "best practices" that's not always the most effective technique for keeping the lights on. Flame away.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
More importantly, progress remains visible with the spaghetti approach
Of course. Ideals should not be applied blindly. They should be followed when they provide benefit.
honey the codewitch wrote:
but questionable in terms of how effortlessly one can make changes (whereas maintainability is more about stepping away for a month and being able to pick it up again, mostly
I really, really dislike the claim that abstractions make anything better when no one can provide any evidence at all that future needs of any sort will be needed. If requirements exist, or a roadmap is known or even if someone expressed a desire for a future feature then maybe consider it. But don't do it 'just in case'. Doing so it no better than gambling on the big wheel in a casino (one of the worst odds games in play.) It does not insure any economic future advantage but it does guarantee complexity which future programmers must then maintain (and so must be paid for.)
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I have the impression that OP interchanges 2 things: purpose built single use code, and code with horrible control flow and global data access. I've written code for running on DSPs, on the bare hardware, and everything was purpose coded with a thin hardware abstraction library I made. In my case I had only 16K program memory and 2K RAM. hardware limits aside, when you are programming close to bare metal, it starts to be less and less useful to implement generic frameworks.
I have programmed a lot of PLCs and while I had a lot of more resources in hardware than you, my coding options were way smaller. Using JMP to control the flow of the program (IF-Else, Calls, partial returns...) was a must. There were no other options. But as you say, having to program like this, it doesn't mean that the code flow has to be ugly, weird or confusing. The different between clean or crappy programs depends mostly on the person programing it, not on the methodic or the language.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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honey the codewitch wrote:
More importantly, progress remains visible with the spaghetti approach
Of course. Ideals should not be applied blindly. They should be followed when they provide benefit.
honey the codewitch wrote:
but questionable in terms of how effortlessly one can make changes (whereas maintainability is more about stepping away for a month and being able to pick it up again, mostly
I really, really dislike the claim that abstractions make anything better when no one can provide any evidence at all that future needs of any sort will be needed. If requirements exist, or a roadmap is known or even if someone expressed a desire for a future feature then maybe consider it. But don't do it 'just in case'. Doing so it no better than gambling on the big wheel in a casino (one of the worst odds games in play.) It does not insure any economic future advantage but it does guarantee complexity which future programmers must then maintain (and so must be paid for.)
You covered something very well here that I was thinking about earlier regarding abstractions paying for themselves. :)
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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honey the codewitch wrote:
They should be used as sparsely as possible and no sparser.
To use your wording with Ravi... you may wish to re-read what I said. It was in the context of having to do something not considered normal. Which clearly includes the scenario you referring to. That being said, I disagree with the premise of being too sparse with comments. I'm not a junior programmer. I don't have the time nor inclination to tell people comments like
// assign variable x to yare bad. That should be a given for senior level chats. This is actually the reason I visit CP less and less these days if I'm being honest. If comments get stale, that's not the fault of comments but the developer. There reasons tools like doxygen and jsdoc exist. Again, if this is code that is for your personal use only, all of this is overkill. But when being paid for it, that tends to suggest it's not.Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
If comments get stale, that's not the fault of comments but the developer.
The same with code. In the PLC world it is a wide extended practice to just add a "AND 0" at the beginning of a code segment to anulate it. That's even worst than commenting it out, because it appears in the cross references as well, commented code doesn't. I once refactored a program of the "Senior" that taught me whe I started, because it was a PITA to work with it.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
If comments get stale, that's not the fault of comments but the developer.
The same with code. In the PLC world it is a wide extended practice to just add a "AND 0" at the beginning of a code segment to anulate it. That's even worst than commenting it out, because it appears in the cross references as well, commented code doesn't. I once refactored a program of the "Senior" that taught me whe I started, because it was a PITA to work with it.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
Nelek wrote:
The same with code.
100% agree.
Nelek wrote:
In the PLC world it is a wide extended practice to just add a "AND 0" at the beginning of a code segment to anulate it. That's even worst than commenting it out, because it appears in the cross references as well, commented code doesn't.
:laugh:
Nelek wrote:
I once refactored a program of the "Senior" that taught me whe I started, because it was a PITA to work with it.
For sure man. Not a big fan of titles and there are some that are "senior" but for them it really means they just spent more years not really learning. Buyer beware. Gotta find the good ones.
Jeremy Falcon
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I ran into an issue recently on a professional embedded project, and that was this: In translating the flow diagrams to code, there were so many conditions around state changes and such that my options were to either abstract the flow with some sort of generalized framework, or cook some spaghetti code. I chose the latter. Why? Simple. The actual effort if anything would be about equal, or favor the spaghetti approach. More importantly, progress remains visible with the spaghetti approach rather than the abstract flow framework which requires a lot of up front design and work without progress visible to the client. Finally, this is embedded code, where a rewrite is maybe a grand or two $USD, on the outside, assuming not a lot of reuse. It would cost at least half that to develop a simple framework, which might make things more maintainable, but questionable in terms of how effortlessly one can make changes (whereas maintainability is more about stepping away for a month and being able to pick it up again, mostly - or someone else picking up your code). It's all a matter of robbing peter to pay paul. The bottom line here is that while we may chase perfect code, and "best practices" that's not always the most effective technique for keeping the lights on. Flame away.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Define "spaghetti code".