Comments on: The Met Office ‘climategate’ Perl code http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2009/12/25/the-met-office-climategate-perl-code/ Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:01:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Derek-Jones http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2009/12/25/the-met-office-climategate-perl-code/comment-page-1/#comment-896 Derek-Jones Fri, 25 Dec 2009 22:24:21 +0000 http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/?p=164#comment-896 I think the code is comprehensible as written and somebody who knows a language other than Perl could probably figure out what is going on. <a href=\http://www.cpan.org/\ rel=\nofollow\ rel="nofollow">CPAN</a> does contain lots of useful modules but when writing relatively small amounts of code, unless the developer happens to be familiar with a module that solves the problem at hand it is generally less effort to to write the required code. Not using CPAN modules also makes life simpler for non-PERL users who will not know about CPAN (<a href=\http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/cru-howto/\ rel=\nofollow\ rel="nofollow">here is one</a>). The code does have a strong <a href=\http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming\ rel=\nofollow\ rel="nofollow">imperative</a> feel to it. I don't see this as being necessary or unnecessary, but then I am always less than impressed by the cryptic code much beloved of Perl aficionados. I see no C or Java specific 'accent', but then 400 lines of code is the briefest of conversations. Unless you have inside information the numbers in your second paragraph might just as well been delivered by Santa Claus. The release of the data is obviously driven by a public relations agenda and the code might just have been tagged on as an after thought. Perhaps a couple of Met Office web site developers had some spare time on their hands and decided to put something together. I think the code is comprehensible as written and somebody who knows a language other than Perl could probably figure out what is going on. CPAN does contain lots of useful modules but when writing relatively small amounts of code, unless the developer happens to be familiar with a module that solves the problem at hand it is generally less effort to to write the required code. Not using CPAN modules also makes life simpler for non-PERL users who will not know about CPAN (here is one).

The code does have a strong imperative feel to it. I don’t see this as being necessary or unnecessary, but then I am always less than impressed by the cryptic code much beloved of Perl aficionados. I see no C or Java specific ‘accent’, but then 400 lines of code is the briefest of conversations.

Unless you have inside information the numbers in your second paragraph might just as well been delivered by Santa Claus.

The release of the data is obviously driven by a public relations agenda and the code might just have been tagged on as an after thought. Perhaps a couple of Met Office web site developers had some spare time on their hands and decided to put something together.

]]> By: Rob Kinyon http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2009/12/25/the-met-office-climategate-perl-code/comment-page-1/#comment-893 Rob Kinyon Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:29:24 +0000 http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/?p=164#comment-893 The people who wrote these scripts may be "fluent in Perl" (whatever that means), but they are certainly no masters of the language, nor are they plugged into the general Perl community. There is no usage of CPAN modules (many of which would have made this code more comprehensible). There are several subtle bugs in the code and the code is unnecessarily imperative. While it may not be "Fortran-accented" (and I agree), it is definitely "C-accented". (I would say "Java-accented", but someone will argue that there aren't any objects.) If I had to guess, this code was written by 3-5 developers who are conversant in several languages and prefer Java or C++ over most other languages (likely they have a large Java or .Net application to maintain and this is a side project). Someone decided that since this was manipulating text, Perl would be the best choice and everyone else just went along. The code has undergone at least 3 internal bugfix/upgrade cycles and possibly as many as 6+. And, finally, this code isn't being released to the OSS community - it's being released as a political maneuver. (Oh - Damian's anti-unless screed is almost completely disregarded by the Perl community at large, at least as judged by CPAN authors.) The people who wrote these scripts may be “fluent in Perl” (whatever that means), but they are certainly no masters of the language, nor are they plugged into the general Perl community. There is no usage of CPAN modules (many of which would have made this code more comprehensible). There are several subtle bugs in the code and the code is unnecessarily imperative. While it may not be “Fortran-accented” (and I agree), it is definitely “C-accented”. (I would say “Java-accented”, but someone will argue that there aren’t any objects.)

If I had to guess, this code was written by 3-5 developers who are conversant in several languages and prefer Java or C++ over most other languages (likely they have a large Java or .Net application to maintain and this is a side project). Someone decided that since this was manipulating text, Perl would be the best choice and everyone else just went along. The code has undergone at least 3 internal bugfix/upgrade cycles and possibly as many as 6+.

And, finally, this code isn’t being released to the OSS community – it’s being released as a political maneuver.

(Oh – Damian’s anti-unless screed is almost completely disregarded by the Perl community at large, at least as judged by CPAN authors.)

]]> By: Peter http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2009/12/25/the-met-office-climategate-perl-code/comment-page-1/#comment-892 Peter Fri, 25 Dec 2009 15:29:30 +0000 http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/?p=164#comment-892 Given that it was written in perl, it should have been rewritten as a one-liner. Given that it was written in perl, it should have been rewritten as a one-liner.

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