Linux Programmer

[Victor Odhner]

Mark Peoples wrote:
> Personally, I don't care what language is used, as
> long as it does what it is supposed to do, and it
> is well commented so, if needed, it can be modified
> easily, later.

It was an eye-opener for me to sit with a benefits
administrator looking over my COBOL (!) code and
have him understand it without my explaining.
That's got to be worth something.

Every language has its place.  Given my background,
I want C if I'm coding to the bare metal and need
really good performance.  But squeezing off a
blazing piece of code is kid stuff.  A maintainable
product is the real measure of a programmer.

I'm stuck in Perl mostly at this point, because I'm
writing CGIs in a Unix environment, and you can't
fault my indentation or comments.  The trick is to
see each little hack you throw together as something
that may quadruple in size an hour later, so you'd
better craft it for maintenance right from the start.

I'm also maintaining a Perl CGI system for a web
site that is pretty fearful to find one's way
around in.  No coding standards, but at least it
has some consistency in the way things are done.
This is supposed to be replaced by a "real" product.
We'll see -- I just keep trying to leave each module
a little more comprehensible than I found it, for
the sake of that poor fool who will look at it next.
Especially since that poor fool is likely to be me.

Vic