Code layout and debugging time

[Magnus B{ckstr|m]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Jonathon McKitrick wrote:
>
> As a side note, perhaps it is simply legacy code, but it seems that the
> older the source in the BSD tree, the denser it is.  Probably to save
> punched cards, eh?  ;-)
>
Nope -- I expect if you surveyed it you'd find that most who wrote code
at that time tried to keep the code compact to fit as much as comfortably
possible onto the screen of a serial ascii terminal.  "Dumb" terminals
at that time were typically 80x24 characters and connected to the host
computer through a serial line that made scrolling a real patience test.

Perhaps programmers from that time are indeed better, from having
had that particular incentive to "think, -then- type.", and "-remember-
the damn code, you'll never get anything done if you constantly have to
go someplace to look at how function so-and-so should be called".

Magnus