Addressing specifics and not the more general by now very very very
well known Olin doctrine (not a comment on it's goodness or otherwise,
just that everyone could by now  paste boilerplate text on the subject
which matches the OD or answer exam questions on what would be
said)(ie the lesson has got across ;-) ).


>... Look at how much trouble you had trying
> to figure out whether the two LEDs are lit 50% of a cycle apart or not.

The trouble amounted to having to open the code and search for "LED".
I agree that if you meant "has no documentation and it really needs
some" then that was trouble.
If you meant "hours of work, it wasn't.

> In fact, your final conclusion was that you're still not sure.

No. that's probably a "lost in translation" twixt NZ_Queen's Anglais
and USAmerican.
I said:

> " ...BUT they could be offset by some other amount ...".

I meant that they would be readily able to be offset by some other
fraction of a cycle if desired, not that I was uncertain what the
present fraction was.

I also tend to use 'it seems" in the sense recommended by Benjamin
Franklin. ie something like "my quick look indicates to me that this
is almost certainly the case and I'm probably correct in saying so BUT
there may be some arcane unseen thing lurking in the code that I've
missed at a quick glance so i'll indicate a degree of uncertainty" or
something.
Whatever.

> There should
> have been a discussion about the general strategy and certainly there sho=
uld
> have been a comment about what was actually done.

If you mean "Should have at least a shred of documentation" then, yes,
it would be 'nice'.

> Sloppiness in one part of
> a design invariably indicates sloppiness in other parts.

That may be true for a wide range of "substantially".
But one man's sloppiness may be eg another man's Ret Butler approach,
for a range of reasons. (* Frankly my dear, I don't ...)

If all the world did things as Olin says they should, the world would
be a tidier more structured, often more logically consistent and
easier to follow place. It would also lose some of its sparkle and
wonder, while gaining some sparkle and wonder in other slightly more
mundane places. Even when "doing it more normally" has great appeal.
"having done it at all" can add nicely to the vector sum of human
achievement.


          Russell
--=20
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