mdj wrote:
> On Feb 9, 5:39 pm, "Michael J. Mahon"  wrote:
>> mdj wrote:
>>> On Feb 8, 8:00 am, Steven Hirsch  wrote:
>>>> It seems like every major application I install that's
written in Java comes
>>>> with its own huge discrete JRE.  That's almost a tacit
admission of the lack
>>>> of interoperability.  Anyone can write bad code, but there
just seems to be a
>>>> lot of it written in Java.  Probably a lot of good
examples out there, but I
>>>> just haven't run into much of them .
>>> It does tend to feel worse due the "payload size" of
the JRE, but
>>> really, most platforms are plagued by this problem. Vendors will
>>> usually take the path of least resistance(tm), and simply bundle
>>> dependencies as a part of their distribution.
>>> A classic problem you do get in the Java world is this one: Vendor
>>> writes app that depends on newer features that are not (yet) a part of
>>> the standard runtime. When a new runtime comes along, the feature is
>>> often folded in, but teams don't typically get the time to rationalise
>>> their codebase against the newer versions, resulting in duplication
>>> and additional complexity.
>>> It's almost universally true in the software industry that 'just
>>> barely good enough' is seen as acceptable, since product lifetimes are
>>> so short. I spend a lot of time trying to convince phb's that the
>>> 'technical debt' incurred by taking the shortest path ends up being
>>> paid for over and again for each iteration, and there are real
>>> benefits to be reaped from cleaning it up.
>> As I used to say, "quick and dirty" is never quick but
always dirty.
>> ;-)
> 
> :-) I really like the middle ground. If you engineer everything you
> system will be, well, over engineered ;-)
> 
> Alternatively, take some of the time you 'get' by being a bit dirty,
> and spend it refactoring the things that need it (using the 20-20 of
> hindsight). This works pretty well, assuming your engineers don't
> spend the time posting to Usenet ...

I agree, "virtue stands in the middle".  My saying was a counterbalance
against going too far Q&D.

The counterbalances on the other side are "the perfect is the enemy of
the good", and "good enough is good enough".  ;-)

But I still find myself "tuning comments" from time to time...  ;-)

OCD seems to be endemic to engineers and programmers!

-michael

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