Subj : Re: Is well written code a rare species ? To : comp.programming From : iny+news Date : Sat Aug 13 2005 09:31 am "Bob Day" writes: > "Phlip" wrote in message > news:l79Le.625$UA1.508@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com... [...] >> Could you preserve its existing behavior while improving its design >> so we can start adding features to it again? > > That's the wrong place to start. First you need to write a fresh > functional specification for the program that includes all of the > features you want it to have, and how it should operate. Then > you can work on a new design of the program. Then, having > gone to all that effort, do a complete rewrite of the code. How do you do that with a big program with something like a million lines of code containing quite big amount of features? Working in such big project has taught some very valuable lessons for me. If you are starting a new project and are able to get a guy that has worked in a big project, do not let him go. The thing just is that there will be less and less software to write from scratch. One just have to do also maintenance, but I think you can say that you do not want to do only maintenance. I at least want to also develop the software further, then I can maintain those pieces while developing the next new piece. (Of course you won't own the code, everybody should be able to touch things in any part of the software. It is teamwork.) -- Ilpo Nyyssönen # biny # /* :-) */ .