software design (was: Re: [geeks] perlish disgruntlement, java considered, sun hardware sought)

[alex j avriette]

> UNREFERENCED FOOTNOTE! DUMPING CORE!!!!

gdb `which bill` -c bill.core

> [1] One thing right now is a mishmash of shell, Expect, and Perl.  
> Currently
>     rewriting it along with documentation on how to use it, in case I 
> get
>     run over by a bus.

ugh. this is the kind of code i work on frequently.

> [2] This project (see [1]) started as a "hey, can you transfer these 
> files
>     from $x to $y and make a pretty pull-down menu index for them?" 
> over a
>     YEAR ago... Fast-forward 11 months, and now it has turned into a 
> major
>     customer-facing project.  Time to go tweak/optimize, I think. 8-)

ayup. dont you wish you'd done this to begin with? orthogonal code 
design means you'd have separate sections and prototypes:

[ file handling ]
[ host handling ]
[ protocol handling ]
[ html backdrop ]
[ arguments for pulldown (s) ]

sounds to me like a job for xml, perl, and shell. any time you come up 
with a quick fix for something like this you *own* it and it will only 
hurt you (or your successor) later when you (they) have to go back into 
it and change it for a different dataset/host/environment.

alex

--
alex j avriette, perl hacker
avriettea at speakeasy.net
http://envy.posixnap.net/