Re: Datasheet-flation?

On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:59 +0100, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2024-11-29 16:21, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 20:42:59 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
 

On 11/28/2024 6:49 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

Do *you* "write for yourself" or "write for others"?
>
I.e., do you write assuming YOU are the Reader?  Or, that
OTHERS will be the Reader?
>
[There seems to be a split on how developers write; I think
this would affect their choice of (spoken) languages as well.]

>
Ah. If I write a script I tend to mix English and Spanish. I tend to use
English thinking of sharing the script or asking questions about it. The places
where I do that are English speaking mostly.

>
I always write for others -- as, if I have to revisit the code
a year or five hence, *I* will effectively BE one of those
"others".

 
Some guy wrote a c program that strips comments from c programs. His
reasoning is that the code speaks for itself, and the comments are
always wrong.

>
Ridiculous.
>

 
I assume that program was not commented.
 
 
I saw a bit of actual Windows source code, and it had a mandatory,
standard comment section at the start of any block of code. It said
 
*/
Author:    Jim Smith
Date:         2018
Purpose:  what it says
/*

>
>
My first job was as programmer for small company. They had tasked an
external programmer with creating a software for them with LabWindows.
This thing creates displays; think a virtual oscilloscope display, for
instance, measuring things like temperature, pressure, rpm, etc. My boss
says "I want you to add a voltage display". Simple.
>
Well, the original programmer had removed the header file that assigned
labels to both the display windows and the code. The code would say
"display_crt(31, A1)", where 31 was the element in the display to
display rpm, for instance. If I inserted "voltage" in the display
window, all the numbers shifted by one, so that 31 became pressure, for
instance.
>
The programmer had sabotaged the code so that no one could touch it by
replacing labels with their values.
>
It took me months to recreate the header file with labels. My boss
thought I was useless: it is difficult to explain this to a non programmer.
>
I carefully documented since then every program I wrote. I did not want
any other person to suffer what I did.

I worked with (with not for, briefly!) a company that had an engineer
make one thing work somehow and then sent it to manufacturing and told
them to make copies. No drawings, no schematics.