Re: The Very LAST Thing I Want To See Is: Cleverness

[andye]

I'm extending the same code that I wrote 10 years ago.

Unfortunately this means I have no-one to blame but myself.

"What idiot wrote this? - oh - me."

On the other hand, when I find a little note that past-me has written in the comments to future-me, explaining what's going on or why I've done it like that, it gives me a little glow of happiness.

[sundialsvc4]

One of my “aces in the hole” is what is now a 15-year old Delphi application, and I wrote every line of it myself.   (All 350,000 of them...)   Today, when from time to time I go back and look at it, it’s absolutely the work of a stranger.   O_o   I can’t even find the subroutines in it ... except ... for the trail of breadcrumbs that I left everywhere in that source-code and in the developer documentation that I wrote for myself.   Today, when I read those documents, I don’t recognize the author and I feel very much like I am learning for the first time.

Hmmmm ... does this mean I’m getting old?   I forget.   Uhh, what was I just ... oh, hell, where are my car keys?

Seriously, I see this all the time when I’m working with a former-developer of a large system.   (We all do.)   There is a genuine look of puzzlement, and a genuine re-learning process.   Sure, I’m journalist enough to pick a headline scenario that will grab the reader’s attention, but, even in the “non bread-truck” case, software is very difficult to write the first time and even more difficult to re-understand in the future.

[sundialsvc4]

For the many curious who have inquired, here is the program of which I speak:   http://www.sundialservices.com/products/chimneysweep.

First started in 1996, it is my personal Energizer® Bunny.   Still.   Whodathunkit ...