On Maintainability

My first computer comes with MS DOS 3.1. Books were very expensive for a 5th grade kid, there was no internet, and “/?” parameter wasn’t incorporated in the dos command. Only knows “cd”, “c:”, “echo” commands, the menu are for display only. I made a batch of single-letter name batch files to achieve menu like behaviour. Not for long, I encounter of software maintainability shortly after my first menu system was done: I got a new game from a friend. The new game became one of my favorite, and I would like to put it ahead of other games. I rename each batch files and edit each of the menu’s “echo” line. Not for long, I gave up the idea of having a menu. It was my first encounter of software maintainability. Even for simple menu like this, the cost of ownership was beyond the time spent of creating the system in the first place.

Ok, enough stories of the good old day. :-)

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