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000042_icon-group-sender _Fri Feb 21 14:44:44 1997.msg
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Received: by cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu; Fri, 21 Feb 1997 16:56:05 MST
Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19970221204444.006c750c@post.its.mcw.edu>
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Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 14:44:44 -0600
To: Jan Galkowski <jan@solstice.digicomp.com>, icon-group@cs.arizona.edu
From: Chris Tenaglia <cdt@post.its.mcw.edu>
Subject: Re: What's the biggest Icon program you've written?
Errors-To: icon-group-errors@cs.arizona.edu
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At 09:07 AM 2/21/97 -0500, Jan Galkowski wrote:
>This is an informal and very unscientific survey.
>
>What's the biggest Icon program you've written? What did it do?
>Do you have any "lessons learned" you'd like to share?
1546 lines. A personal database system I called Attercop.
I wrote it in assembler in 1983 (approx 2200 lines).
I ported it to unix and icon in 1988. I'm still using it.
Why? It works. I don't have to deal with a DBA. I can
have multiple, database keys and I can change them
on the fly.
NOW, I write big systems, but they're usually separate
icon modules that interact. I find them easy to manage
under 200 lines.
>
>Did you have any efficiency issues to overcome? Did you use
>coexpressions?
Speed was an issue for the VMS implementation. I was able
to speed up Attercop by switching from using lists to tables.
Performance improved maybe 100 fold on larger datasets.
Coexpressions. Never quite understood them. Used once
to write a better diff program.
>
>Have you ever needed to "sell" Icon to management? Are they
>distracted by inferior yet more popular and less powerful
>languages?
At first NO. Management wanted the job done, and I had
something called "system manager prerogative". Much
success. Then the operation grew and consultants came
in. Suddenly industry standards like perl became the buzz
word. The hackers concept "reverse intent" came into force
and now standards are excuses for not doing things.
Icon is in there because I wrote 100's of small icon modules
and built a pyramid of dependency. It works well. I've offered
to train anyone interested. No takers. Strange. I have yet to see
the truck loads of cheap perl coders brought in, but someone
left a perl manual on my desk as a hint. Trouble is, there's
no-one else who knows much about programming languages.
The cobol trained management thinks perl, C, icon, and
shell script all look funny.
>
>I'm curious about these questions, but I'd also like to see
>the discussion group be more active.
>
>-- Jan Theodore Galkowski,
> Developer, tool & numerical methods elf
> Digicomp Research Corporation,
> Ithaca, NY 14850-5720
I hope I provided some food for the flames.....
Chris Tenaglia (system manager) | cdt@post.its.mcw.edu
Medical College of Wisconsin |
8701 W. Watertown Plank Rd. | Ce que vous voyez est
Milwaukee, WI 53226 (414)456-8765 | Ce que vous obtenez !