[Ffmpeg-devel] compiler warnings

Måns Rullgård mru
Thu Mar 30 11:15:35 CEST 2006


Steve Lhomme said:
> M?ns Rullg?rd wrote:
>> Steve Lhomme <steve.lhomme at free.fr> writes:
>>
>>> Having to guess exactly how a C compiler process data to know exactly
>>> what is does is bad engineering. Even though the code is correct and
>>> small, it makes it harder to read by a large number of coders. Making
>>> the code easily readable is important to maintain the code, not wonder
>>> if the compiler has to be C90 or C99 or whatever to compile a line
>>> correctly.
>>
>> Code should be made easy to read for those who will actually read it,
>> not necessarily for every school kid with a computer.  Competent
>> programmers find the kind of code Rich advocates easier to read.
>
> I have been in many companies (as a contractor) and noone ever asked me
> if I could debug a compiler. And having a code in a company that only a
> few select developers can work with (those with the experience usually
> end up managing projects, not coding) is a very bad habit. Especially
> given the turn-over for programmers is very high. That means the code
> will end up being unmaintained, removed or rewritten. Another example of
> bad engineering.

The proper way to run a company is not to have the employees write code
that any fool can "understand", but to hire competent programmers that
can both read and write good code.  Promoting good programmers to managers
is also a bad idea, which unfortunately many companies have failed to
understand.

This is where good open source projects differ from corporations.  We don't
have managers in the corporate sense, and only competent programmers are
allowed to touch the code.  Many patches get rejected, as I believe you are
aware.

There are also badly run open source projects where patches anyone and his
dog are accepted without thorough review.  These projects usually end up
as an unmaintainable mess.

>>> That's why the famous quote from here "fix the compiler" is also not
>>> realistic in the real world. Most of the time you are given a compiler
>>> (and an IDE) that goes with the hardware you're working with (I'm not
>>> talking about PCs) and you just do with it. You'll just get fired if
>>> instead of fixing bugs you were saying your boss "it's not my fault,
>>> it's the compiler". It's an engineering practice that will get you
>>> nowhere.
>>
>> I get away with it all the time at my day job.  Common phrases there
>> are things like "it's a driver bug", "it's the compiler's fault",
>> "it's a bug in some-component-not-under-our-team", followed by "we'll
>> just have to wait for them to fix it".
>
> I guess they are paying you to find problems, not solutions.

They are paying me to do whatever it takes to make the things run.

-- 
M?ns Rullg?rd
mru at inprovide.com





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