Kyle Hamilton wrote:
Converse: If it's confusing, it's broken. Maintenance is a primary
concern, and transparency is a primary concern in maintainable code.
If someone's digging deeply enough to get confused by it, and there's
inconsistency (aka obscurity) in the code that is examined when they
look at it, it might be time to give the 'transparency' goal another
look.
This is IMO, of course. It's also where SSLeay/OpenSSL broke.
Ironically, it is exactly the people who have maintained software
that give the advice "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
The spirit of the advice is that changes, including bug fixes,
sometimes introduce bugs. As the complexity of software grows,
few people have the time or expertise to verify that a change won't
break something else.
Every rule has exceptions. When it makes sense, we certainly
rewrite code to make it easier to understand and maintain. In
fact, Nelson has asked us to do that in his code review comments.
Wan-Teh
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