Comments on: Think Before You Hack http://www.tentonnebaby.com/2006/10/03/think-before-you-hack/ Discussion on Web Technologies, Design and London Fri, 23 Sep 2011 09:41:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Oli http://www.tentonnebaby.com/2006/10/03/think-before-you-hack/comment-page-1/#comment-594 Oli Tue, 03 Oct 2006 13:45:24 +0000 http://www.embeddedstream.com/2006/10/03/think-before-you-hack/#comment-594 I'm actually really happy that all of the strange layout issues I've seen so far in IE7 are not bugs - the rendering behaviour seems like a massive improvement on 6. I wrote about this as I caught myself assuming that a broken layout was due to a browser bug - I think the first rule of diagnosis is to be objective and not make assumptions! Hacking is always the easy route, but leaves you with a fragile codebase that is hard to maintain. I also think taking the proper time to understand a technology is also much more rewarding on a personal level. I’m actually really happy that all of the strange layout issues I’ve seen so far in IE7 are not bugs – the rendering behaviour seems like a massive improvement on 6. I wrote about this as I caught myself assuming that a broken layout was due to a browser bug – I think the first rule of diagnosis is to be objective and not make assumptions!

Hacking is always the easy route, but leaves you with a fragile codebase that is hard to maintain. I also think taking the proper time to understand a technology is also much more rewarding on a personal level.

]]> By: Mike http://www.tentonnebaby.com/2006/10/03/think-before-you-hack/comment-page-1/#comment-593 Mike Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:58:01 +0000 http://www.embeddedstream.com/2006/10/03/think-before-you-hack/#comment-593 When working with someone else's software, it's interesting how it's all too easy to assume that you are always in the right and anything that's not perfect is a bug. This isn't just a problem in IE - I've seen some horrendous hacks in code that I've reviewed and more often than not it's a lack of understanding of the given framework (.NET, Java, whatever) that's caused the reliance on "hacking until it works". I do think that the negative press that IE has got up until now has just exacerbated this problem, no matter now unwarranted it is. When working with someone else’s software, it’s interesting how it’s all too easy to assume that you are always in the right and anything that’s not perfect is a bug.

This isn’t just a problem in IE – I’ve seen some horrendous hacks in code that I’ve reviewed and more often than not it’s a lack of understanding of the given framework (.NET, Java, whatever) that’s caused the reliance on “hacking until it works”.

I do think that the negative press that IE has got up until now has just exacerbated this problem, no matter now unwarranted it is.

]]>