Re: RECALL

From: Co-Sysop (dmodem@CYBNETONLINE.COM)
Date: 09/15/97


At 07:09 PM 9/13/97 -0700, Daniel Koepke wrote:
>
>Uhm, no...cut-and-paste, regardless of what some CS teacher might
>say, is not a viable way to program.  First, all you learn is how to
>use the cut-and-paste features of your editor.  Second, your code
>will begin to suck--and I mean quick.  If all you do is cut-and-paste,
>you'll never improve on the code you're cutting-and-pasting.  Before
>you even start to cut-and-paste, you should know how to code.  And by
>the time you know how to code, you should know that there are so
>many ways to do the same thing that you can't possibly have the best
>possible way--and shouldn't drag along legacy code.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying.  I have a command that does
something cool.  I want a spell that does the same cool things exactly like
the command.  I don't write that code from scratch.  Why would I want to?  I
already have a working verson of what I want to do.  Now let's say I want to
do something that I haven't put anywhere else in the code but I know someone
who has something that works just like I want it to.  It would be a much
better idea to see if I can get the code from that person than to go and
waste a lot of time writing something that is already written.  Don't go
through the trouble of inventing a light bulb when you have a light bulb
shop across the street.  If you want to spend hours writing code that is
already written just so you can say you made yourself seems a bit
unneccessary to me.
Now before you went and said that everything I said was wrong maybe you
should have paid more attention to what I was talking about a recall command
that would work just like a recall spell could easily just be copyied to
save time.  Mindlessly duplicating it by hand isn't really going to help you
as much as spending time on more complicated and important tasks.  Sure you
could write a recall command from scratch just to brag that you wrote a
recall command from scratch.  You could also put shoes on your hands and
walk on your feet.  My point is that sometimes imitating someone else's work
is a lot more important than your desire to have people respect your ability
to do something different (which they don't always respect anyway).

I would ask not to be flamed but since someone will do it anyway try to do
so intelligently.


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