[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#2370) Path finding

[Ross Wetmore <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Raimar Falke wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 04:40:35PM +0000, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> > On Wed, 19 Feb 2003, Raimar Falke wrote:
[...]
> > Maybe the warmap code itself wasn't easily maintained, but code which
> > _uses_ the warmap can be written in an easily maintained manner. Code
> > which uses pf directly is going to be very ugly, and rather
> > unmaintainable, simply because the pf API is so big.
> > Correctness be damned, Raimar. 
[...]
> Maintainability is important in the long run. No doubt about this. But
> correctness is still more important.
[...]
>         Raimar
Correctness is too often a codeword for religious preferences,
i.e. (ab)used subjectively vs objectively.

Robustness is a better word as that actually means something
useful to the practical code excution during game play.

Maintainability is *always* superceded by speed when performance
is an issue, and there is never a rationale for doing something
inefficiently when an equally maintainable efficient choice is
available. The trick is always to avoid premature optimization
and thus starting off with maintainablity in front is certainly
a reasonable first pass. It is however, not a hard ordering.

Maintainability is also too often abused for religious goals, and
coupled with inflexible ordering becomes just another religion
enforcement tool by those that place it high on their priority
list.

A kitchen sink blob of every possible option may be wonderfully
maintainable to some since everything is laid out in all detail,
and totally inscrutable to others. On the otherhand a structured
hierarchical breakdown may be very maintainable to some, and
totally inscrutable to those that are incapable of wrapping their
heads around the organizational separation of elements in the
hierarchy.

Generally though, the monolithic blob is losing out to the
hierarchical programming models evolving as base concepts and
extensions.

The Golden Rule here is always be a little bit flexible ...

Cheers,
RossW
=====