[Melbourne-pm] Using strict...

[Shlomi Fish]

On Tuesday 20 February 2007, Craig Sanders wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 02:44:58PM +1100, Tim Hunt wrote:
> > My options seem to be to declare all the variables in the main script
> > and carry on regardless, or implement a better config method.
> >
> > Discussion appreciated.
>
> two thoughts spring to mind:
>
> 1. unless they're huge, it's often better to just rewrite crufty old
> cgi scripts from scratch.  at least that way you'll know that they've been
> written with best practice (incl. best security practice) in mind.
>
> actually, even if they're huge it's still a good idea. it just takes
> longer :)
>

Well, some people (including me) disagree with you on these claims:

1. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

2. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000348.html

3. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538831956647446078&q=moolenaar - 
towards its end Bram Moolenaar (the lead Vim developer) mentions how the 
elvis (an alternative vi clone) developer decided that elvis's codebase was 
not good enough and that he should rewrite it. He spent 2 years doing so, 
without a single release, and ended up with an editor that didn't have all of 
the original codebase's features. As a result, hardly anyone today uses 
elvis, while vim is very popular.

--------

Crufty scripts that don't have strict can be made to have it. If they suffer 
from other problems - these problems can be fixed incrementally while 
maintaining the integrity of the original code. Rewriting the code is much 
more time consuming, introduces more bugs, and requires much more mental 
effort.
 
Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

> 2. if the config files are just perl (or very perl-like) code, have you
> considered replacing the "while(<IN>)" loop with just "require A.cfg;" ?
>
> that would require editing the .cfg files to add "my" in front of variable
> assignments, so that it works with strict...but may be the simplest fix.
>
> alternatively, as you suggest, pre-declare them in the main scripts.
>
> craig



-- 

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Shlomi Fish      shlomif at iglu.org.il
Homepage:        http://www.shlomifish.org/

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