Source code second thoughts...

[aro@cs.aber.ac.uk]

> Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 20:55:54 cdt

> Realistically, the amount of documentation required for the source
> code would be EXTREME!  Do we really want to impact the development
> of MACL by making the developers produce documents suitable for
> publishing??? 

Often it is useful to have the source code. But on the other hand, I
don't want to, and shouldn't have to search through huge amounts of
source code trying to figure out how something works. One of the
advantages of a good object-oriented design is supposed to be that you
should be able to hide how things work internally and document the
interfaces. After all, we don't want to be dependent on how things
work internally, or each time there is a minor change, our code will
break.

What I'm really saying is that in an ideal world, yes, I DO expect
developers to supply complete and accurate documentation. This isn't
always a realistic proposition.

> George Williams

Andy Ormsby
CS Dept., UCW Aberystwyth, Wales.