Re: Knowing where a function has been used (bis) [Was: Re: Optimising Elisp code]

[Emanuel Berg]

tomas wrote:

> Code "grows", one single (minimum-effort)
> step by step, following a path of minimum
> resistance over a time-changing
> fractal landscape.
>
> As one colleague of me used to put it (and
> he's one of the most gifted programmers
> I know personally), code grows all by itself,
> and the programmer's job is to prune it and
> to keep the pruning rate high enough so to
> not be drowned by the jungle.

Code grows, but not necessarily by enlonging
the defuns that are already there. Instead,
when some new situation arrives, write yet
another defun to handle it. Then call it from
the original function. That way the original
function grows, but only by a single line.

To do this is much, much simpler than to write
an insanely long defun, and when insanity
becomes a problem, try to "refactor" it!

[This is a general remark; I never did any work
on Gnus so I don't know what explanation holds
the most truth.]

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