On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 7:06 PM, Michael Haupt <
[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi Bert,
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Bert Freudenberg <
[hidden email]> wrote:
>> I'm not implying this is the case for SwaLint, but, there are cases where
>> started-from-scratch alternatives take away resources that would have been
>> better spent improving an existing implementation. Also known as CADT
>> (
http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html).
>
> I am aware of that phenomenon. :-)
>
> In this case, the entire thing started as a student project in a
> course on software technology. The task was to construct a new system.
> In the end, it turned out to be a very nice one - so why not make it
> public?
>
> Best,
>
> Michael
I would agree with Michael on this one. (NOTE: This message doesn't
have anything specific to do with *Lint, so please don't read it as
such) Depending on the software you are working with, sometimes it is
more time efficient to work on existing software, and in some cases it
can actually be better to start from scratch.
So if you are paying people you can insist that they always use
existing solutions unless they can prove conclusively that a rewrite
will be better. But for people working in their free time it is a
little different picture. Most people I know don't like maintenance
stage software development and would prefer to write something new.
That is, writing something new is more fun for them.
So the choice may be that they either (a) make something new that has
an interesting take on existing software or (b) try to refactor the
existing software, get frustrated/bored and end up not doing anything
at all.
Locked
