[erlang-questions] Rhetorical structure of code: Anyone interested in collaborating?

[Vlad Dumitrescu]

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 3:29 AM, Richard A. O'Keefe <ok@REDACTED>
wrote:

> But there's a reason why twists and turns might need recording.
> I don't know about you, but more than once I've had the experience that the
> 'final "right" turn' was actually wrong, and to get working code I've had
> to go
> back to something I'd rejected on (what I know see to be) mistaken grounds.
>
> Now that doesn't mean everything has to be in the version we give to the
> compiler.  Keeping (possibly wrongly) discarded stuff is the job of the
> version
> control system.
>
> And of course an *idea* that is tried in one derivation line and then
> abandoned
> may turn out to be very useful for solving a different problem.
>

This is true and would be useful, but I think I can see a problem (which
might very well be the reason why it isn't something people already do):
after a while, there will be literally thousands of discarded stuff. How am
I supposed to search and find the alternative that works, especially if I
am now working on a different problem than 6 months ago when the stuff was
originally written? Is this search faster than starting from scratch? IMHO
the answer is that what needs to be saved is a higher-level description,
not a complete brain dump of the process.

There is also a difference between what is interesting for teaching people
(beginners) and what is interesting for future reference for the team that
develops the code. These categories need different levels of detail,
different kind of information.

best regards,
Vlad
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