Re: A system for localizing documentation strings

[Kenichi Handa <handa@m17n.org>]

In article <86ir86kp6l.fsf@lola.quinscape.zz>, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> > variable names, etc. are mostly based on English words.  If
> > they are all some random alphabets something like
> > "lkvkdloa", it's almost impossible to track codes.

> Historically, Basic identifiers were restricted to two letters
> (possibly also just one letter and an optional digit, don't remember).

> Anyway, anecdotal story: in my youth, I had been dabbling in assembly
> language quite a lot: it was the thing to do if you wanted to get
> serious tasks done within the 64kB restraint.  I have transferred one
> arcade game from that time into C code about 14 years or so after it
> had been written.  Identifiers were confined to 6 letters.  In most of
> the program parts, the comments were exclusively numerical:
> accumulated execution cycles.

> The program flow was obvious and understandable.  Of course, I had
> written the program myself.

> Another experience I remembered is disassembling a Reversi program.
> It was a piece of beauty: the index registers of the Z80 were employed
> in an obvious way mapping to the boards and the bookkeeping stacks
> respectively, and the whole thing worked with heuristic tables and
> alpha/beta-pruning.  The control logic was concise and obvious.  All I
> had was the binary for understanding, and it was the work of a master,
> nothing deliberate in it.

I also had an experience to try to understand the system
code of NEC PC8000 micro computer by disassembing Z80 codes.
At that age, the total codes are at most 32K or 64K-byte.
Good old days...

What we are facing now is collections of sometimes 10-100
times bigger program pieces.  If one spends weeks to
understand just one piece of them, he can never have a time
to write a code.  :-p

---
Kenichi Handa
handa@m17n.org