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Software Engineering

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    @FreshDaddy. "They (for the most part) won't ever see private functions." False. After you win the lottery, other programmers will take over your code and see the private functions. Also. Some languages (e.g. Python) eschew this kind of privacy. Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 18:16
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    @S.Lott - Listing every private function is not a common requirement at all. It happens, don't get me wrong, but a full-scale "list every private function before writing code" is certainly pretty rare. There is "necessary tedius" and then there is "worthless tedius". Considering programmers are in the business of eliminating "worthless tedius", real world clients would hardly ever request something as costly and pointless as this, unless it was "life or death" type code. Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 18:28
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    @ironcode: '"list every private function before writing code" is certainly pretty rare.' Not in my experience. It's how people learn to do design. Junior programmers are often held to this standard until they can prove that their work doesn't require this level of oversight. Generally less than a year. An organization that took n00bs from school and threw them at programming with no oversight is mostly just creating huge problems. This level of oversight is essential to be sure that code has a fighting chance of working. Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 18:48
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    @S Lott - my motto is that if software development is tedious, you are doing it wrong. We're programmers. We automate the tedium. We don't repeat ourselves in code, and there is no reason to repeat ourselves in the documentation either. Commented Sep 7, 2011 at 2:41
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    @kevin: this answer is pure sarcasm. As such, it is completely inappropriate, and I've flagged it. Commented Sep 7, 2011 at 8:24