Comments on: Why Write Code When You Can Remove Some?

By: Susanna Kaukinen

Susanna Kaukinen — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:14:57 +0000

Very well put! :-)

By: Ville Laurikari

Ville Laurikari — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:05:55 +0000

I find myself doing the same thing. I think it’s because programming is really a process of discovery. Usually you don’t know beforehand exactly what code you need to write, even if it was crystal clear what the code needs to do. So as you explore the space of programs that solve your problem at hand, you end up programming yourself into several branches which become obsolete when you discover better ways to solve the problem. When finishing up, you prune all those obsolete branches and leave in the best solution you could come up with.

By: Susanna Kaukinen

Susanna Kaukinen — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:20:41 +0000

When I’m writing a program, I first come up with more and more code. When the program begins to become complete, I find myself removing code.

By: Ville Laurikari

Ville Laurikari — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:23:20 +0000

Yep, I always smile, inwardly at least, when someone announces that “the code is the crown jewels of this company!”. Um, what about the people who created the code? If the code is so precious, then the developers must be geese laying golden eggs!

By: Giorgio Sironi

Giorgio Sironi — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:11:27 +0000

I like the economic metaphor, if you think about it code is really a liability, a thing which subtracts money (time) from your pocket. Maintenance time and debugging time are precious resources.