On 5/15/14 10:23 AM +0900, Rufus wrote:
Trane Francks wrote:
On 5/15/14 4:31 AM +0900, Rufus wrote:
MCBastos wrote:
Interviewed by CNN on 14/05/2014 16:05, Rufus told the world:
...personally, I don't think SM is all that "complex"...it's not
like it
does 3D graphic presentations with interactive panning and rotation or
anything math-intensive like that.
Actually, math stuff is CPU-intensive but not necessarily intrinsically
complex (although optimizations might add to it).
Depends on what you're doing I guess...I evaluate and disposition
quasi-realtime system software for a living...SM is pretty simple WRT to
what I work with. I don't see SM doing anything that interdependent,
system-wise.
Working with externally-generated data, OTOH, is VERY complex, because
you have to deal with all the novel and creative ways people find to
*fuck up*.
SM is basically a front-end to a database...no hit against SM if people
generating the data that go into it screw up their data, but SM should
do what it does consistently and as error free with respect to it's
platform interface as a user would expect - and I see problems going
unaddressed in that regard, at least for Mac OS X. Platform interface
requirements are pretty stable, generally speaking.
The biggest issue with regard to complexity is the sheer number of RFCs
that the code must correctly support. RFCs describe the behaviour, but
not the implementation. If you've ever coded anything bigger than, say,
5,000 lines of code in a single program, you soon get a grasp of how
quickly interdependencies can greatly complicate maintenance.
...LOTS bigger. We have a web-based tool at work that is a *real*
mess...and that's been an excuse for not fixing it even though we live
in a nest of professional coders...for over a decade.
So I have *zero* sympathy. Fix the code.
Since you're well experienced with such long-term problems being present
in a commercial environment replete with contracted programmers, it's
worth noting that nobody's getting paid to work on SeaMonkey. It's not
even really a Mozilla project. So, good luck with that lack of sympathy.
I'm sure they feel the same way about coding features that you want that
they have no need for. (And that's the flip-side of community-driven
development.)
This is rather off-topic now, so follow up to private e-mail should you
wish to debate the point further.
--
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Trane Francks tr...@tranefrancks.com Tokyo, Japan
// Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
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