The Black Art

Oggi vorrei linkare al mondo ma sopratutto a me stesso come promemoria questo interessante post di Aaron Seigo (la mente dietro KDE4) che parla della longevità del codice, vi riporto anche il passo più interessante a mio avviso...

If the code base has been neglected or wasn't built with care, sometimes refactoring can be extremely difficult, even impractical. this is especially true when the refactoring is intended to not only perform spring cleaning but also to pave the way for a new set of capabilities. the more the new capabilities diverge from the existing, the more robust and flexible the code base needs to be to withstand the gales of change that it will face.

that is why the early structure of a long lived code base is so important. a lot of recent research on development methodology surrounds quickly creating what are often one-off productions with enough quality (there are economic drivers pushing this research over other sorts). it seems that creating successful long lived code bases is still a bit of a black art.

brz