[Info-vax] "Clever code", was: Re: wrong file format

[Simon Clubley]

On 2021-01-07, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
> On 1/7/2021 8:16 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 1/7/2021 3:35 PM, 1tim.... at gmail.com wrote:
>>> It's funny how years later, clever code usually turns out to not be.
>> 
>> I would not agree with that.  Perhaps resources today allow better 
>> solutions, but, the old solutions still do what they always have done.
>
> Clever code usually indicate more than just working code.
>
> I get associations to "brilliant code" that by using every trick
> in the book managed to shave off a few percent of CPU and memory
> usage, but instead created a maintenance nightmare, because noone
> besides the original author can understand the code.
>
> Based on recent posts here then VMS itself does have a few of those.
>

Yes. The VMS terminal driver is an example of this idiotic mindset
and is also the reason why, in 2021, we can't even do something as
simple as edit DCL command lines which are longer than the terminal
width. :-(

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.