Article View: comp.bugs.4bsd
Article #302Re: Complexity of reallocating storage
From: Kevin Braunsdorf
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 1991 23:13
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 1991 23:13
47 lines
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2097 bytes
In article <29778:Feb419:26:3791@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>Be serious. Time, space, and human effort are by far the most important
>three factors in programming.
Yeah, the time and space I have to spend tracking down sloppy code that:
(a) has no error checks
(b) doesn't identify itself
(c) outputs the *wrong* error string...
The *small* time it takes to type in
if (0 != chdir(acTo)) {
fprintf(stderr, "%s: chdir: %s: %s\n", progname, acTo, strerror(errno));
exit(9);
}
(which is a macro in vi, like:
map! ^F fprintf(stderr, "%s: ;: %s: %s\n", progname, ;, strerror(errno));^[F;
or:
map! ^P fprintf(stderr, "%s: ;: %s\n", progname, strerror(errno));^[F;
)
is better than either
(void)chdir(acTo);
or
if (-1 == chdir(acTo)) {
perror("chdir");
exit(1);
}
the second one is the one that really pisses me off. With a little more care
the program could lead off with a *name* so long pipes wouldn't be so hard
to debug under the UNIX shell.
Yeah, Dan, the time I care about is not the first coder, it is the
maintainer (most of the time is spent in maintaining a system), and
the user writting his first pipeline (who thinks:
chdir: Not a typewriter
is not a great error message, and thinks all of UNIX is cryptic).
--
"We'll crash and burn, it's hard to look away!!"
kayessbee, Kevin Braunsdorf, ksb@cc.purdue.edu, pur-ee!ksb, purdu!ksb
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!news.cs.indiana.edu!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!nostromo.cc.purdue.edu!ksb From: ksb@nostromo.cc.purdue.edu (Kevin Braunsdorf) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd,comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Complexity of reallocating storage Summary: maintainance time is more than you will spend, anyway. Message-ID: <5173@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 4 Feb 91 23:13:07 GMT References: <5883:Feb102:05:4991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Sender: news@mentor.cc.purdue.edu Followup-To: comp.bugs.4bsd Organization: PUCC UNIX Group Lines: 47