berry@zinfandel.UUCP (05/13/84)
#N:zinfandel:10700003:000:268 zinfandel!berry May 8 10:01:00 1984 Someone once told me that Bell deliberately stripped all comments out of the UNIX distribution before sending it out. Anyone know for sure? Did they REALLY write yacc without any comments? Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (415)932-6900
dys@homxa.UUCP (D.SZE) (05/14/84)
Two semi-related remarks:
1. Bell doesn't distribute UN.X, AT&T does.
Except for the one name AT&T Bell Labs, all
the Bells (names, logos, colors, etc.)
are in the local companies.
2. Even internal to AT&T Bell Labs, you
cannot access the sources in UN.X unless
you have something like "a need to know".
That caused lots of complaints a while ago.
Not a part of the Death Star (the new AT&T logo) -
David Sze
Bell Communications Research
(The Good Guys)sdo@u1100a.UUCP (Scott Orshan) (05/14/84)
Bell doesn't distribute the UNIX System. AT&T does.
ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (05/15/84)
I don't know if Bell does, but I know Leffler did it to the Berkeley stuff. He claimed he wanted a consistant commenting style. -Ron
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (05/16/84)
> Bell doesn't distribute the UNIX System. AT&T does.
Yes, yes, we know, we know. Judge Green and company notwithstanding,
people are going to refer to various pieces of the former Bell System
as "Bell" for some time to come, like it or not. Old habits die hard.
How many of you "improperly" refer to "Velcro" rather than "Velcro (r) brand
fastener" (or whatever it is that the lawyers tell us we must call it)?
So, all you operating company/BCR people, why not lighten up a bit? Reminding
people that AT&T and Bell are now separate isn't going to change popular
habits one bit, so it's really wasted effort.
Guy Harris
{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guygary@mit-eddie.UUCP (Gary Samad) (05/16/84)
[] Okay, Okay!! Will someone answer the question: Does "AT&T" strip comments?????
cspencer@bbncca.ARPA (Clifford Spencer) (05/16/84)
----
Although old source code would seem to indicate this, newer things
like system V init.c and getty.c, are just OOZING with comments.
cliff
--
cliff spencer
{decvax,linus,ima}!bbncca!cspencer
cspencer@bbncca.ARPAgwyn@brl-vgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (05/17/84)
The older UNIX source code never HAD comments to speak of.
jsgray@watmath.UUCP (Jan Gray) (05/18/84)
> The older UNIX source code never HAD comments to speak of.
The older UNIX source code didn't *need* comments! :-)
Jan Gray (jsgray@watmath.UUCP) University of Waterloo (519) 885-1211 x2730
"I'll say, Jan Gray is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow..."presley@mhuxj.UUCP (Joe Presley) (05/18/84)
>> The older UNIX source code never HAD comments to speak of. >The older UNIX source code didn't *need* comments! :-) Actually, the older UNIX programmers didn't require comments to understand source code. The newer ones do :-):-). -- Joe Presley (mhuxj!presley, ihnp4!j.presley)
gwyn@brl-vgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (05/18/84)
The older programmers understood their own code just fine without comments, but no one else did. :-) :-) :-)
jreuter@cincy.UUCP (Jim Reuter) (05/19/84)
Well, I haven't seen any system V sources (I understand some portions have really nice comments), but in the system III distribution, down in the graphics sources somewhere, is a program whose sole function is to strip comments. Kind of makes you wonder. Jim Reuter (decvax!cincy!jreuter)
dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (05/22/84)
Stripping comments is sometimes useful. There was once a programmer at Waterloo who wrote C code that contained so many verbose comments that it was difficult to find the code. And finding, and reading, and understanding the code itself was important, since the comments were sometimes simply wrong.
khw@druky.UUCP (WilliamsonKH) (05/24/84)
The recent submission in net.bugs.usg on a fgrep bug indicates to me that the older programmers did not necessarily understand their code without comments, but merely deluded themselves into thinking they did. I tried for a little while to understand the fgrep code in order to make a change, but gave it up as not worth the considerable effort. It really is pretty rank. Nobody has answered the original question which has started all this discussion. I don't know the answer either, but I'll hazard a guess that there were never very many comments in the original source, so even if they stripped them, it would not cut the number of lines shipped out noticeably.
bprice@bmcg.UUCP (05/24/84)
>From ...mhuxj!presley Wed Dec 31 16:00:00 1969 >>> The older UNIX source code never HAD comments to speak of. >>The older UNIX source code didn't *need* comments! :-) >Actually, the older UNIX programmers didn't require comments to >understand source code. The newer ones do :-):-). >-- > Joe Presley (mhuxj!presley, ihnp4!j.presley) Now that there is a little maturity going around, understanding the source code is starting to get necessary. When you're just having fun, things can be done a lot more easily--- -- --Bill Price uucp: {decvax!ucbvax philabs}!sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice arpa:? sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice@nosc
apwh@cbdkc1.UUCP (Alan P.W. Hewett x2675) (05/25/84)
To answer the original question, sometimes attempts have been made to strip the comments. I happen to the the writer of the current getty and init and I put loads of comments in so that I wouldn't have to maintain the code forever. The comments were stripped, reinstated after severe protest, but reformated from my style to something I found considerly less tidy and nice to look at. I happen to think that comments are as important as the code itself. No one remembers exactly what they did six months later when it is there own code. With some one elses it can be hopeless and wastes much time and effort trying to figure out uncommented code. If I owned UNIX I'd be commenting it after the fact. Every change I've put in it has been commented. With the OS I'm writing now, much of which comes from UNIX, comments abound and have been added to code lifted from other sources, like UNIX.