Slashdot Mirror
How Mainstream Can Code Scavenging Go?
The time-honored tradition of code scavanging has long been a way for new programmers to "break in" to a new language or task that they may not want to build from the ground up. The re-use of old code, cleaned up and tweaked to a new purpose can help developers learn many useful skills and accomplish tasks quickly, especially for small tasks that aren't of vital importance. One blogger wondered if this process could be formalized and tools could be built to help foster and enable code scavanging on a mass level. Is this a viable option, or are there just too many things to consider?
I want to be the first to welcome our new GPL overlord to the commercial software world.
I drink to make other people interesting!
...since they obviously aren't going to be using it for much longer...
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
The Web 2.0 crowd rediscovers subroutine libraries. Film at 11.
I guess this is slow news day. Using bits of code without writing everything from scratch - how novel! How controversial! Is there anyone who doesn't do this? What kind of skull-shattering boredom do you have to endure before you start writing blog entries about this?
And the first article suggests that trusting the code is an issue, because you didn't write it. Well let's see - it's short, and you just pasted it into your program. But you're not going to bother to read it? You fail. Seriously.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
Isn't this, you know, a library?
Why don't you scavenge the dictionary to spell properly?
If only there were some computer programming language that had built-in support for some kind of a Comprehensive Archive Network, that would be the best.
... hmm ... "import" the things you need from the Comprehensive C++ Archive Network!
Maybe the C++ language could do it. Then you could just
Hmm, CC++AN sounds pretty dumb. It'd never catch on. Oh well.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Today Slashdot jumped the shark.
Seriously. I'm starting to lose brain cells when I read the "articles" these days.
That sir, was a work of beauty. There should moderation other than -1 Troll for such art.
Indeed...we need a -5 Asshole.
It's called Google.
What a great new idea! Maybe we could put all of the scavenged code into a container and call it a "library". Wiyth brilliant ideas like this software is going to advance by great leaps and bounds. No more reinventing the wheel, or constantly rediscovering ancient ideas.
That article used a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. But it got me thinking... perhaps we could group related snippets of code into units called "libraries", and then we could easily use those libraries to perform common tasks?
#include
using namespace std;
int main()
{
cout "Hello World!";
return 0;
}
It leaves us only "the". Which is an article. Liar.
Apparently, slashdot has already scavenged angle brackets - they're gone. Truly the most scavenged code ever.
[I]f you publish something with no licensing info, it is copyrighted to you by default. (In the US at least, and many other countries as well.) So even if you're looking at a site that is, say, clearly marked as a tutorial, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can use that code, unless the guy comes out and says the code is public domain/GPL/etc.
;-)
Good point. I think I'll use it the next time someone comments about code of mine that is overly complex and convoluted.
"You see, all the simple ways of doing it have been published in tutorials. This means that they're copyrighted by the author. If I used simple code, I'd almost certainly be violating some author's copyright, and since you hired me to write the code, they'd probably sue both of us. Wouldn't want that, would we?"
(Only half-joking here. This is what the world's coming to.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.