| --- Log opened Wed May 15 00:00:57 2019 |
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| 21:43 | < Kizor> | The other day I was combining mods for UFO: Afterlight with diffchecker.com and Notepad. Just for kicks I took better notes than I thought I'd need, marking down in detail what I'd done to each file. |
| 21:44 | < Kizor> | This came in very handy when a technical issue made me have to start again. |
| 21:46 | < Kizor> | My takeaway is "keep better documentation than you think you'll need." |
| 21:47 | < Kizor> | I'm shamefully undereducated, and nearly incapable of Serious Computer Projects like setting up databases or servers, coding stuff I'd actually use or using frickin' wget. But is "keep better documentation than you think you'll need" a lesson worth remembering for Serious Computer Projects(tm)? |
| 21:56 | <~Vornicus> | 100% |
| 21:56 | <~Vornicus> | If I open up a file and don't remember what I was doing then I'm wasting an hour or two teasing apart *just that* |
| 21:57 | < Kizor> | :) |
| 21:58 | <~Vornicus> | But if I spent the 5 minutes to go "this function does x so that the y invariant is kept, and uses the z algorithm" then that hour is a minute |
| 21:59 | <~Vornicus> | If I write tests and the tests break when there's a later change, I don't have to go hunting for "why the nostrils is this wrong" later for most things |
| 21:59 | <~Vornicus> | (it is still possible and common for things to break in ways the tests don't catch but then you know what isn't wrong anyway) |
| 22:02 | < Kizor> | Thanks. |
| 22:03 | <~Vornicus> | That's the point of documentation and tests: some time down the road your code *will* be examined by a psychopath with anger issues who knows where you live |
| 22:06 | < Mahal> | always always always document |
| 22:06 | < Mahal> | always |
| 22:06 | < Mahal> | even if you think the code is self explanatory |
| 22:06 | < Mahal> | even if you think it's something you'll only ever do once |
| 22:06 | < Mahal> | document |
| 22:09 | < Kizor> | Do you, and how do you, document for projects other than writing code? |
| 22:10 | < Mahal> | I mostly write POwershell scripts, rather than 'real' code, so for me it's about a header section in the script describing what it's for, then comments throughout explaining what each section does. |
| 22:11 | <~Vornicus> | Kizor: lots of ways |
| 22:11 | < Mahal> | e.g. the new starter automation task script has a small paragraph outlining the inputs, outputs, and what have you; each section outlines "this sets up the AD objet" "this sets up Exchange like This" "this sets up Skype for BUsiness with These parameters" |
| 22:11 | <~Vornicus> | You've got spreadsheets and you set those up so the columns and sheet names are descriptive sure but |
| 22:12 | <~Vornicus> | then you have to say what each field is for and what it expects to look like |
| 22:14 | < Kizor> | In plaintext or as settings? |
| 22:14 | <~Vornicus> | Depends. Spreadsheets often have comments fields but a lot of folks don't realize that |
| 22:15 | <~Vornicus> | I've had projects that are basically a filder hierarchy full of art and I had a text file in the top directory telling you how they fit together |
| 22:17 | < Kizor> | Is usiing a few rows or cells in a spreadsheet for scribbling down margin notes frowned upon? |
| 22:17 | <~Vornicus> | structure works too |
| 22:18 | < Kizor> | Structure? |
| 22:18 | <~Vornicus> | text files are flat and may make it difficult to deal with sometimes |
| 22:18 | <~Vornicus> | uh - anecdote, but only once I get back from shower |
| 22:22 | <@gnolam> | Kizor: http://thecodelesscode.com/case/116 |
| 22:30 | <~Vornicus> | Okay back |
| 22:30 | <~Vornicus> | So back some time ago I was a math and computer tutor for a then-local community college |
| 22:32 | <~Vornicus> | COmputer topics were the basic stuff: how to get around on a computer, use the internet, construct half-decent google queries, and use Microsoft Office apps - Word, Excel, and Access |
| 22:32 | <~Vornicus> | to a one, everyone found Access easier to figure out than Excel |
| 22:32 | <~Vornicus> | Because the structure of an Access database is strictly regimented in ways that Excel is not |
| 22:34 | <~Vornicus> | Structure is wonderful. Done well, it makes it obvious when information that's supposed to be there is not; it makes it obvious where to find information |
| 22:35 | <~Vornicus> | Spreadsheets, over text files, make structure easy to impose |
| 22:36 | <@gnolam> | I should add that even more important than explaing *what* something does is to explain *why* it does what it does in that particular way. |
| 22:36 | <@gnolam> | Because the former you can figure out. |
| 22:36 | <@gnolam> | The latter you'll have no idea about until it comes back to bite you. |
| 22:39 | <@gnolam> | You look at someone else's code - or your own, two years later - and go |
| 22:39 | <@gnolam> | "Why is it doing all this needlessly complicated stuff to accomplish X when I can just call the standard function doX()? Let's simplify it!" |
| 22:39 | <@gnolam> | *immediately after the changes are live* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLY BROKEN!" |
| 22:41 | <~Vornicus> | (that leads into another discussion, of course: only when you understand a thing's purpose may you advocate for its removal) |
| 22:42 | <@gnolam> | Because it turns out that using doX() directly with your data makes every computer with a particular version of Windows spontaneously burst into flame or something, and *that* is why it used 30 lines of code instead of 1. |
| 22:43 | < Mahal> | ^^^^^ |
| 22:43 | < Mahal> | this |
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| --- Log closed Thu May 16 00:00:58 2019 |