Re: Aspect Oriented Programming in context of lightweight languages.

[Geoffrey Knauth <address@hidden>]

On Friday, Mar 21, 2003, at 08:42 US/Eastern, Noel Welsh wrote:
> to learn how to use a feature you have to use it, and
> if don't get clearance to use a feature before you've
> learned how to use it...

Copy-Paste programming lets people use features others have assembled 
in ways the original authors never intended.  The results can be 
interesting, worthless, or alarming.

So I'd offer a different restriction.  Don't trust a program the author 
cannot explain in detail and coherently.  Which reminds me of  
"Literate Programming."

Or, you could adopt a point-and-shoot approach.  When I was in college, 
we had a roommate who memorized the entire Iliad in Greek.  We didn't 
know if we believed him, so we tested him randomly, and to our 
amazement, he could recite verses from any starting point we picked.  
 From that point on, we trusted him completely.  Code could be handled 
the same way.  Pick a random piece of it, find the author, and ask him 
to explain it.  If he can't, *blam!* -- it's gone, and has to be 
rewritten, or at least documented.

Geoffrey