Re: [CODE] Snippets vs. patches

From: George Greer (greerga@circlemud.org)
Date: 11/08/00


On Tue, 7 Nov 2000, Shane P. Lee wrote:

>I agree that patches are much easier to create, and they lessen the
>chances of making a mistake, but I feel that if you are going to
>release code to the general public, you should keep in mind that this
>contribution could be around for several years, meaning that circlemud
>itself will probably be updated, affecting contribution in untold ways.

I view them as snippets that just happen to be interperable by a 'patch'
program.  They both take some intelligence beyond 'apply patch' but the
patch is much easier for me to create, especially for OasisOLC.  If the
patch doesn't apply cleanly for you, I'm not surprised.  Based on the patch
itself you should be able to figure out what it's trying to tell you to do
though.  In fact, the CircleMUD patchlevel will generally be in the 'diff'
line, unless I did "diff -u stk src" like a few of the old ones...

It's also handy for me to delete the source tree and just keep the patch
against a known CircleMUD patchlevel around to re-create later.

>My feelings:
>Patches are lazy and inconsiderate.

"Guns kill people."

For the confused:

        "Guns kill people."
                ->
        "People can kill people with guns."

        "Patches are lazy and inconsiderate."
                ->
        "People can be lazy and inconsiderate with patches."

Don't blame the technology for human failings. Just because you can do
something something doesn't mean you should.  Some happen to be less lethal
failings than others.

If you don't like the "gun" debates, simply replace "gun" with "car" and
the statement still holds.  Both are exacerbated by alcohol as well. :)

--
George Greer
greerga@circlemud.org


     +------------------------------------------------------------+
     | Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ:  |
     |  http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Circle/list-faq.html  |
     +------------------------------------------------------------+



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 04/11/01 PDT