Re: The Harvesting process and the BFAV

Marcus Denker <[email protected]> wrote:
[SNIP]
> I would prefer a more Agile approach to harvesting. First: I'd
> like to approve stuff that I filed in, that worked, and that looked
> not totally strange when looking over the code.
> 
> I mean, what do we gain from not adding a fix done by someone who
> allready submitted a lot of patches, just because nobody has the
> time to really understand the fix? In the end, it's not fixed. Just
> that. 
> 
> We really need to think about what the worst case of a more agile
> review policy would be.
> 
> 1) It could introduce a bug. Hey, what is the problem? That's what
>    alpha is for. And bugs are good, because bugs generate tests.
> 
> 2) It could be not-that-perfectly documented. To me, the alternative
>    seems to be: Not adding, or adding a slightly-not-perfect thing.
>    What is worse? I would *really* prefer to e.g. have some feature
>    now instead of waiting indefinitly. But that may only be me.      
> 
> Make it green. Then refactor. 

As always, I agree in principle but I will *always* repeat this:
	Class comments and "top" method comments should be written when the
code is written.

That does not imply "perfectly-documented" - it rather implies
"documented *at all*". And I strongly urge people to think about this -
why is the image so poorly commented? Because SqC took exactly this
approach - "better to getthe stuff in, who cares, we can write comments
later". Surprise! There is no "later" when it comes to code comment.

Now, after his little rant - I agree with you Marcus. I just want the
little, little, little rule added: 	"Just make sure the damn code has
proper code comments!"

That will save us all time in the end. It takes very little time for the
author to write these comments when he has the code in his mind. And it
will save hours of thought for all the rest of us.

regards, Göran

PS. And you all know that when I say "proper code comments" I am not
proposing some extreme form of silly comments stating obvious things
etc. And not for setters/getters. And not "in code comments".