Re[2]: Lame studies that people quote as fact that have no basis in reality and still don't prove anything even if they did

[Halvar Flake <halvar () gmx de>]

Hey all,

MH> effort into. Another giveaway are people who "can't" work without pointers
MH> and/or loose typing.

I am not all too sure about this. Loose typing certainly has little
use, but pointers are so essential to algorithmic and memory
efficiency that branding them as evil is like declaring that cars
which go faster than 20mph are too risky. Computing is full of fads,
and from the PM's to the QA ppl you will find "simple" recipes for
complex problems -- do not use pointers, do not use strcpy, do not ...
Most programmers I know are a fairly smart bunch, and trying to cram
smart people into a box will make them find ways to evade you.
Convincing them has served me better here -- although it is hard,
since once they lose respect (if you screw up) you'll have a hard time
getting them back to listen to you.

Rule number one to me was to never ever try to force a rule on them
just because I was in the position to do so.

Condemning pointers reminds me of the condemnation of the BASIC
command "GOTO" which was then reintroduced as C++ exceptions (in a
slightly more elegant way).

The worst thing that can happen in any software project is an
antagonism between the PM/QA and the programmers themselves.

Cheers,
Halvar

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