Re:The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad
by gjm11 on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @06:57AM
(#3265150)
You think Donald Knuth has made a career for himself out of being able to right 'bug free code'?
Really?
He's made a career for himself out of being an extremely creative computer scientist and writing outstandingly scholarly books about programming. Far from marketing himself as producing bug-free code, he has published articles entirely devoted to the history of bugs found in his software.
(As for the bits that turn TeX into LaTeX, no one is making a career out of claiming that they are bug free -- for the simple reason that no one thinks they are.)
Re:The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad
by roel_v on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @07:33AM
(#3265237)
Of course not, it's hyperbole to illustrate the point. In the specific cases of Qmail and TeX, the 'bug free' aspect of it however is overblown and a marketing gimmick. It's not that hard (given enough time) to make something bug free, it's a whole different thing when the software needs to evolve at the same time to meet the (changing and expanding) requirements of actual users.
Re:The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad
by Joeri on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @01:43PM
(#3266749)
Are you implying that qmail and tex don't have actual users?
The point those packages make is that some problems can have a solution that lasts years or decades instead of mere months.
Re:The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad
by roel_v on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @03:37PM
(#3267235)
How many people are using just TeX, and how many just qmail in production systems (i.e., not on their local workstation)? Very few.
Re:The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad
by EdiX on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @03:14PM
(#3267139)
Actually, the reason for not evolving/rewriting TeX is so that old documents can be typeset and produce the same results. I find that an appealing goal.
Re:The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad
by RBerenguel on Tuesday November 22, 2011 @09:18AM
(#3265563)
TeX wasn't born in a night and suddenly appear in binary form. Knuth worked a hell lot to make it clean, make it work and make it fast. At least, for when he wrote it. Go and read The TeXbook
Of course to make the software useful in the real world, a lot of things have to be added to it - make sure to not include any of it in the 'core' otherwise the 'bug free' claim will go out the window really quickly.
So yeah, in that sense I guess it's technically (which I use as a euphemism for 'autistically') correct to call TeX bug free (the bounty program for bugs found in it is quite famous, and part of fore-mentioned marketing).