Comments on: Programmer-Archaeologist http://oddbill.com/2007/07/04/programmer-archaeologist/ SCIeNCE | ARt | WEiRDNESS Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:16:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: David Barbour http://oddbill.com/2007/07/04/programmer-archaeologist/comment-page-1/#comment-1131 David Barbour Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:23:39 +0000 http://oddbill.com/2007/07/04/programmer-archaeologist/#comment-1131 Trackback: this post sparked a <a href="http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4424" rel="nofollow">recent discussion</a> on LtU. Trackback: this post sparked a recent discussion on LtU.

]]> By: Bill Cunningham http://oddbill.com/2007/07/04/programmer-archaeologist/comment-page-1/#comment-656 Bill Cunningham Wed, 18 Jul 2007 06:18:00 +0000 http://oddbill.com/2007/07/04/programmer-archaeologist/#comment-656 I guess that's how you'd have to define a layer of software... certainly the programmers writing it at the time don't think they are describing a defined world-view. But if you are looking at their combined body of code and asking, "what problems were they trying to solve?", patterns should emerge.<br/><br/>Sometimes knowing what problems they were trying to solve in different defined strata can at least narrow down your field of investigation when you are digging through a library of in-house code looking for some useful class that you can borrow or adapt to some similar but new issue.<br/><br/>P.S. - Sorry your post was held for so long - I didn't realize I had anonymous comments moderated. That's been fixed now. I guess that’s how you’d have to define a layer of software… certainly the programmers writing it at the time don’t think they are describing a defined world-view. But if you are looking at their combined body of code and asking, “what problems were they trying to solve?”, patterns should emerge.

Sometimes knowing what problems they were trying to solve in different defined strata can at least narrow down your field of investigation when you are digging through a library of in-house code looking for some useful class that you can borrow or adapt to some similar but new issue.

P.S. – Sorry your post was held for so long – I didn’t realize I had anonymous comments moderated. That’s been fixed now.

]]> By: Anonymous http://oddbill.com/2007/07/04/programmer-archaeologist/comment-page-1/#comment-655 Anonymous Sat, 07 Jul 2007 18:48:00 +0000 http://oddbill.com/2007/07/04/programmer-archaeologist/#comment-655 This is an interesting view of what we became. The concept of a layer of software implies that each layer's designers all want to tell the world a different story than the layers above and below... It is inherent in human nature to want to say "I am the definitive vocabulary to describe your problem" However if you take this away and try to centralize everything, software development becomes less quick and with more cost I believe. The same pattern of "I am the definitive vocabulary" exists in creating computer languages. If ADA was the perfect language... why did all these other computer languages come into being? This is an interesting view of what we became. The concept of a layer of software implies that each layer’s designers all want to tell the world a different story than the layers above and below… It is inherent in human nature to want to say “I am the definitive vocabulary to describe your problem” However if you take this away and try to centralize everything, software development becomes less quick and with more cost I believe. The same pattern of “I am the definitive vocabulary” exists in creating computer languages. If ADA was the perfect language… why did all these other computer languages come into being?

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