[comp.lang.c++] Tiemann's Law

rfg@MCC.COM (Ron Guilmette) (06/03/89)

Due to some strangeness with mailers around here, I am just now
re-receiving some mail (from the GNU mailing lists) that came in
(the first time) several weeks ago.  This is good because I am
now re-digesting these messages with a much higher retention rate :-)

Anyway, I noticed one line in a message sent out by Michael
that I thought bears repeating.  Indeed, it is sufficiently
truthful (and self-evidently so) that I believe that it should
henceforth bear the honorary title "Tiemann's Law".

Tiemann's Law:

	Code isn't reusable if it's not usable.

:-)

// Ron Guilmette  -  MCC  -  Experimental Systems Kit Project
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foote@p.cs.uiuc.edu (06/05/89)

A related principle:
	Code that hasn't been reused is not reusable.
This is a corrolary of:
	If it ain't been tested, it doesn't work.

jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock) (06/07/89)

Here's a couple of my favorites:

"If it ain't usable, it ain't reusable."
"Its always trivial to write code that can run arbitrarily slow."
                             ^^^^ or languages
"Its always trivial to write code that doesn't have to work right."
                             ^^^^ or languages

bet@orion.mc.duke.edu (Bennett Todd) (06/14/89)

Not to mention my favorite,

	"If it hasn't been ported, it isn't portable."

Who gave us that one, anyway? Sounds a whole lot like Henry Spencer....

-Bennett
bet@orion.mc.duke.edu

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (06/20/89)

In article <14738@duke.cs.duke.edu> bet@bent (Bennett Todd) writes:
>	"If it hasn't been ported, it isn't portable."
>
>Who gave us that one, anyway? Sounds a whole lot like Henry Spencer....

I wish I'd said it, but I don't think I did.
-- 
You *can* understand sendmail, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
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