From: John P. Looney (john at domain antefacto.com)
Date: Tue 02 Oct 2001 - 20:39:26 IST
On Tue, Oct 02, 2001 at 08:13:07PM +0100, Aidan Kehoe mentioned:
> Is source code really `knowledge?'
How a computer program works is knowledge. Source code is 50% of how it
works. The APIs etc. is the other half.
> Given that, offered the
> specifications of an interface, a competent programmer won't have any
> problem implementing that interface?
Barring when the interface is incomplete, whether intentionally or not.
Over the yeras, many ISO standards have been given "profiles", whereby you
can choose to implement subsets of given standards, and only similar
subsets interoperate. It nearly killed unix, for a start.
> There are very few programs out
> there that have anything truly original or little-known about
> them. It's just a matter of writing & debugging the code--no
> `knowledge,' required. The .doc format, the last time `little-known'
> mattered, has long been understood outide MS.
If that was really true, there wouldn't be a problem releasing the
source, would there ?
BTW, there aren't many people in microsoft that understand the DOC file
formats. I think there are fifteen or so, some variations, some completely
different. And, I'd say having the source to them wouldn't even help you
understand them.
Kate
-- _______________________________________ John Looney Chief Scientist a n t e f a c t o t: +353 1 8586004 www.antefacto.com f: +353 1 8586014
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