lamont@icopyright.com wrote:
>
> On 6 Sep 2000, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > In article <39B6A683.3F75DC9D@timpanogas.com>,
> > Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey@timpanogas.com> wrote:
> I guarantee you that IT managers and CTOs do not share your enthusiasm for
> slow, correct coding when faced with their business being down, their
> revenue stream being interrupted and their stock options losing value.
> If you ignore those concerns then you may find that wolf at your door as
> IT managers choose other operating systems (e.g. FreeBSD, Solaris), kernel
> developers choose other operating systems to work on (e.g. FreeBSD), and
> Linux companies start going under.
>
</beating a dead horse>
Which is exactly why there should NOT be a debugger. Some guy in a suit
doesn't give a rat's batoot whether the code his programmers put out is
correct or not. The guy calling the shots may not even KNOW the
correctness
of said code. All he cares about is that the project his people just
spent
the past x amt of time and y amt of <choose a currency> should be, or
(more probably) HAS to be done within a week, and the only thing between
him and a big, fat holiday bonus is some out of the way feature in the
kernel that hardly gets used. His people use a debugger, see that
certain
conditions lead to the behavior that makes his program work, make those
conditions always true, and submit a patch without ever thinking about
the
long ranging effects. If said patch is
incorrect, it will probably be rejected. The fact is however, it's only
PROBABLY. The linux masters catch most patch bugs, but when linux starts
to REALLY take off, one patch a day will turn into five, ten, etc. and
the
gurus are still (barely, but still) short of super-human, make mistakes,
and bugs will get introduced into the kernel.
Fact is, linux is gaining in popularity because CORRECTNESS guides
development, not money. When correctness falls to the way side, and
profits
take the reigns, linux will turn into a free <choose any crappy OS>. A
debugger allows a bad coder to disguise their bad code as good code more
easily.
Jesse C Cronce
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 07 2000 - 21:00:29 EST