Re: Features vs infrastructure (was Re: Tracepoint support in Cygnus GDB ?)

Andrew Cagney
2003-10-02T19:18:11Z

> That's an interesting question. Thinking about that, and comparing with
>> GCC experience, I'd say that in general it's just extremely difficult to
>> get infrastructural work accomplished in a small group or small company;
>> you'd have to have a sufficiently large and/or well-funded group that
>> the time taken by infrastructure does not affect the group's overall
>> schedule.

That argument only serves as an excuse for poor engineering.

> Unfortunately, my own experience with large companies is that they have
> very very very controlled budgets and that it's hard to explain to a
> manager who only cares about functionality that such and such
> infrastructure work is going to save some bucks later if the rework is
> going to take more than, say, a few days.
>
> In my opinion, unless you find a talented developper willing to invest
> a lot of his own time, the right way to go is incremental improvements
> via transition plans.

Yes.

Andrew