20 Oct
2005
20 Oct
'05
3:20 p.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Actually there appears to have been a basic shift in society's thinking
on that front over the last 50 years or so. At one point the philosophy
seemed to be lots of tools, and the right tool for the job. Nowadays it
seems to be a case of one tool, and using the same tool for all jobs.
(Personally the former approach seems far more sensible to me, but then
I'm not an accountant :-)
On 10/20/2005 at 4:03 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
But later on, I said to use the right tool for the right job. Many
Windows programmers don't do that either. But I wasn't talking about efficiency, I was
talking about cleanliness.
Uh, oh! You're beginning to sound like a Windows programmer! No--I take
that back--most Windows code isn't clean or efficient. :) Clean code when the code needs to be clean. Efficient
code when the
code needs to be efficient.
Or better still, do both. I think that often gets lost by programmers -
that in nearly all cases it's possible to write highly efficient code
that's also simple to understand.
Mind you, I always gauge efficiency in terms of what the compiler turns
out. I'm not a fan of the "efficiency" allowed in some languages (C
being one of the biggest culprits!) which reduce the amount of typing
but result in ten possible ways for the programmer to write the same
thing - which ultimately gets compiled to the exact same binary anyway!
cheers
Jules