Bools and explicitness [was Re: PyWart: The problem with "print"]

[Chris Angelico]

On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 1:49 AM, Rick Johnson
<rantingrickjohnson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 5, 2013 11:59:07 AM UTC-5, Chris Angelico wrote:
>
>> Frankly, I don't think the language much matters. It's all
>> down to the skill of the programmers and testers. Ada
>> wasn't the source of the problem unless Ada has a bug in
>> it... which is going to be true of pretty much any
>> language. Maybe Python would be a better choice, maybe
>> not; but let me tell you this, if the choice of language
>> means the difference between testable in three months and
>> testable code in three years, I'm going for the former.
>
> Yes EVEN IF life or property hangs in the balance, the only important decision is how much work YOU will be required to do -- Chris, why i am not amazed by this bombastic display of selfishness?

I would like to say that you're not amazed because you're intelligent
enough to understand what I was saying, but I'm not sure it'd be true.

Let me spell it out for you.

* Deadlines are real things. They make a very audible "whooosh" as they go past.
* If the time frame for developing this is five years, then in five
years, the code must either be shipped or scrapped.
* Taking three years to get to a testable codebase allows two years to test.
* Taking three months to get testable allows over four years to test.

Would you say that doubling the testing period is a good thing or a bad thing?

ChrisA