Chris,

You've reminded me of another of my sayings.

You know the phrase about the bride wearing "something old, something 
new, something borrowed, something blue"?

Well I've thought for a very long time that every release of software 
should include "something _rewritten_, something new, something 
borrowed, something blue":)

It's always been hard to convince a manager that you'll spend the next 
several months working on the new release where your goal is that 
nothing has changed (externally), but you've restructured in preparation 
for the new round of features and done something about the accumulated 
cruft ...

It's also hard to convince a developer to spend time working on 
something old instead of something new:)

The idea of mixing up a release with a little bit of rewrite and little 
bit of new is that you don't have to spend all of your time on the old...

Dale

On 12/17/2010 11:19 AM, Chris Cunnington wrote:
> @Dale
>
> I have to say your answer was pretty cool, as I learned some interesting
> things from it. I always like the historical perspective. The only part
> I'd comment on is this:
>
> "As a software system evolves the assumptions that were made early on
> are no longer valid,"
>
> To which I'd say: "Yea, but the code doesn't seem to go away." You'll notice that images never seem to get smaller.
>
> (Yes, Cuis. I see you.)
>
> I can remember several times this year when I was looking at Seaside code, particularly 2.6, where I was finally
> understanding things that I thought were tied were actually separate and one was redundant. I'm thinking particularly
> the evolution from the Builder to the Canvas. They were both there. One was unnecessary. And the way some projects
> evolve, the classes proliferate creating a similar kind of pollution. Granted, if I had a solid grip on patterns,
> I might not mind so much. But I don't think that invalidates my preference.
>
> Let me be clear: I admire Lukas and his work. I think Gofer would be great in Squeak. I discovered, as a result of this
> bust-up, his tutorials about PetitParser, which I'm going to spend time on. But I reserve the right to encounter code,
> turn away from the computer, and scream. But that's just me. The more explicit we can be about our preferences, the
> better I think we can all get along.
>
> Chris
>
>