Re: [tlug] Re: Alan Cox's remark at Fosdem

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Josh" == Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> writes:

    Josh> because I feel that if you really *must* write code so
    Josh> clever / elegant that it is resistant to understanding just
    Josh> by reading it, you'd bloody well better spend half an hour
    Josh> figuring out how to explain the code, and either comment
    Josh> extensively, or use a comment to refer the reader to
    Josh> external documentation.

Well put.

Still, I think that the real point here is that Alan said it in
public.  Same thing for Linus's remark.  No (job) security through
obscurity here; these guys know where the problems are, they point
them out.

Uva's (I think it was) original point, that the Linux VM is too
dangerous to use in a production system, may still stand, at least for
some admins.  But it's a tradeoff, and Linus has been awfully good at
making those, and recovering from his own (and tytso's ;-) mistakes.

    Josh> As in the Bell Labs example, it is often the case that if
    Josh> you do not take the time to explain something, you do not
    Josh> truly understand it.

Irrelevant in a world where the author is almost always too expensive
to hire for maintenance work.


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