[Squeakfoundation]re: TrueType font support and 3.6

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Sun Jun 22 17:06:31 CEST 2003


Daniel,

> I don't know about the rest of Agile Development, but XP claims that
> code is easy to _change_ (not fix) things *iff* up to that point, you
> refactored mercilessly, did the simplest things that could possibly
> work, and have tests to back you up. If the code in question was
> refactored mercilessly, we would not be having this discussion... 

That's a pretty bold claim for someone who has not been involved in the
process but anyway...

> We're not talking about potential bugs here (which additional testers
> might flush out, as you say), we're talking about code that 
> hasn't been improved or pronounced ready by it's author, after recieving
> a first review. I don't understand what there is to discuss.

What's there to discuss (and we just started with that) is what quality
measures to take and how to apply them. There are always many different ways
to do things and if you aren't happy with a certain way and if you only play
the role of criticizing (and not actively working on them) then you'll have
to explain by what measures you judge it. The problem is that abstract
measures can be applied in many different ways - some of which you probably
wouldn't agree with (see my last message). 

The weird part of this discussion is that I absolutely can't follow your
general negative feeling towards the code we're discussing (that's entirely
unrelated to whether Yoshiki wants to do more work on it). I have looked at
it, I am using it, it works well, it is absolutely reasonable code to me,
it's in the same league as all the other things that have gone into 3.6a (in
some ways it's better since I still can't update a 3.6a without breaking it
;-)

Your messages convey a feeling of much broader unhappiness about it in
general ("we all agree", "it is not ready for inclusion", your story about
showing code to others, etc) and I am trying to understand where that
feeling comes from. But I don't see anything which would explain this and
that leaves me utterly confused about what to expect from you the next time
we're going to have any similar discussion.

The only explanation I have at this point is that you think the TTF stuff is
unimportant and therefore apply much more rigorous measures than you would
in other situations (e.g., if it's not perfect don't even consider it - the
first paragraph above seems to go into that direction). And even that's okay
with me - you just have to say so. After all, then I'll know what to expect
the next time around.

But right now I'm just totally confused.

Cheers,
  - Andreas



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