Shell Scripts v. Command Options (was: Re: small bug in who(1) of SVR3)

[Ian Dall]

In article <18946 at rpp386.cactus.org> jfh at rpp386.cactus.org (John F Haugh II) writes:
>Studies have shown that the cost of maintaining code is largely independent
>of the language and depends primarily on the amount of code.

That confirms my experience.

>A three line
>change to a C file should be just as easy to maintain as a three line shell
>script.

I don't believe that. The size of the C program you are maintaining is
the whole program, not just the 3 lines you added! The trouble is,
when making the "three line change" to a big program, you have to
comprehend (almost) the whole program.  It's like the ubiquitous one
line bug fix. The hard bit isn't typing in the line, it is working out
what change to what line is required.

Secondly, I think it is rare that you could translate a 3 line shell
script to 3 lines of C code.
-- 
Ian Dall     life (n). A sexually transmitted disease which afflicts
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