From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Florin Mateoc <fmateoc@yahoo.com>
To: gcc@gcc.gnu.org
Subject: Re: type based aliasing again
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 18:02:00 -0000
Message-ID: <19990916044713.25538.rocketmail@web201.mail.yahoo.com>
X-SW-Source: 1999-09n/msg00676.html
Message-ID: <19990930180200.Hrqz5-rEULiyl-xYHMZ4QBCrxvDaVHtFfFekPqycd_M@z>

Allow me to share my unsolicited 2 cents with you:

THE CLIENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

I know that there are good programmers that don't live
by this principle (the software is their baby and they
know best what's good for it), but if you make the
effort to listen and accommodate EVERY (distinct)
complaint or request you end up writing better
software. It is called feedback (different from the
"low-level" (or insider) one that you can get from
your peers) and, besides education, it is the single
most important outside help you can get to improve
your work.
Now it may be that the client doesn't know exactly how
to tell you WHAT she wants, maybe she tries to tell
you HOW to do it instead, or she doesn't know how to
say it politely, but this doesn't change the fact that
you are receiving valuable feedback and you should use
it.

"I find *extremely* disturbing, sufficient (especially
in conjunction with the *huge* waste of time this
discussion has been to date, and will continue to be,
in various forms, until the end of time)" that the gcc
maintainers - as compiler writers - and not the
compiler users, know best how their compiler should
behave externally. This sounds to me like Sun's
position with Java: they designed it, they know best
how it should be used. Well, if they don't happen to
take the right decisions most of the time, less and
less people will follow. I, for one, have stopped
using it, after initially thinking that it looked
promising. I am trying to use the computer as a tool
to solve real problems, not to engage in rituals
observing holy standards (or procedures, or
methodologies, or patterns, or other software
engineering silver bullets).
As for the long-term perspective, "in the long run we
are all dead"

Best regards,

Florin

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