Re: lynx-dev Re: lynx hacking, stoppage of such

[John Bley]

On Thu, 13 May 1999, Henry Nelson wrote:

> Somehow I got the impression that you were working on a program to find
> coding errors and do general clean-up.  If that happens to be true and
> you publish it; remember us and throw us a few scraps.  Anyway, thanks
> much for all of your efforts up to now.

I've been using lynx as a testing ground for improving my toolbox in this 
area, yes.  I've learned to use a variety of debuggers, and static- and 
dynamic-analysis tools effectively, as well as how to make effective use 
of common text and compile tools, etc.  After learning how quirky these 
tools can be and how much general project setup affects their use (I can 
find an error in a official, well-maintained GNU project within minutes of 
compiling it), I rather abandoned the naive dream of The One Big Error 
Finding Tool, preferring to work on improving my toolbox.  I hope to find 
the time this summer to write up a web page that explains some of my 
techniques.

I've been rather fortunate in that there were many crufty bits in lynx 
that needed some fresh eyeballs.  I guess the best lesson I've learned is 
that if you find an error in one place, hack up a quick grep for the same 
kind of thing and run it on the whole tree - it's quite likely that 
somebody made the same mistake elsewhere, either because it was the same 
person or because of cut-n-paste coding.

-- 
John Bley - address@hidden
Duke '99 - English/Computer Science
  Since English is a mess, it maps well onto the problem space,
  which is also a mess, which we call reality.     - Larry Wall