Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
blog.rtwilson.com
Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
1–10 of 64 posts
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#2Hardly news for anyone who's been a developer for a long time. I generally solve my dev problems wandering around London. This has the added bonus of when I've sorted out the problem in my head, I'm at a location I've never been before and have the chance to find a new restaurant/pub. Win/win.
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#3While you can get the benefit of clarity by stepping away from the keyboard for a while, I've found the best return is from test-driven development. TDD forces you to think about what you're trying to achieve before you try to solve the it. The thing I took exception to in the post was:
> 5. Make small change to the code on the off-chance that it might solve the problem
Whether practising TDD or trying to formalise the problem on paper (or in your head), this is not the way to write code. Programming is not a random search problem.
These days, I tend to only step away from the keyboard when I'm losing my bearings for where I am in the big picture. Usually, that's when I'm "making small changes to the code on the off-chance that it might solve the problem"… this means I don't really know what the problem is.
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#4While you can get the benefit of clarity by stepping away from the keyboard for a while, I've found the best return is from test-driven development. TDD forces you to think about what you're trying to achieve before you try to solve the it. The thing I took exception to in the post was: > 5. Make small change to the code on the off-chance that it might solve the problem Whether practising TDD or trying to formalise t…
Please re-read.
"It’s very easy to slip into the mindset of:"
His point is that the procedure that he gives (in particular step 5) is the wrong one.
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#5I think this article would be better titled "Want to write some code? Get away from Visual Studio".
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#6+1. I've found that thinking hard and long about most problems before coding them results in less buggy (sometimes even no bugs!) code. I remember my friend telling me that his dad had to stand in line and wait literally days to execute code on a computer (using punch cards) and they had all the time in the world to write the code, but very little to execute it. One mistake during execution and they would have to wait a few days for their turn, delaying the results that they were seeking.
I try to emulate this environment (by not compiling/running code) and trying to tell myself that I really should get a large chunk of thought (followed by relatively bug-free code) down before I let the compiler/interpreter in. This discipline has helped me a lot imho.
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#7"Step Away From the Computer" or "Hammock-driven Development" by Rich Hickey (author of Clojure): http://clojure.blip.tv/file/4457042/
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#8I have a personal project I've been working on for years, mostly in pen and paper.
Every once in a while I'll get motivated and start coding it up. I'll start to think "I didn't think I could do it that way when planning it on paper, but I can't remember the reason...I'll just see what happens."
A few hours later I get to the "oh yeah..." part.
Funny thing is, that works both ways. Sometimes no matter how much you plan, if you just start coding you get the positive "Oh yeah!" moments that wouldn't have happened on paper.
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#9I think this article would be better titled "Want to write some code? Get away from Visual Studio".
Perhaps better titled get away from the IDE. Every IDE has exactly the same capacity that he's ranting against.
This is a rant against write, run, debug, repeat, not visual studio.
Even Notepad++ has run in it.
Re: Want to write some code? Get away from your computer
#10+1. I've found that thinking hard and long about most problems before coding them results in less buggy (sometimes even no bugs!) code. I remember my friend telling me that his dad had to stand in line and wait literally days to execute code on a computer (using punch cards) and they had all the time in the world to write the code, but very little to execute it. One mistake during execution and they would have to wai…
Yeah my Dad has told me similar stories. In fact, I'm finding a similar thing now when I'm using the university supercomputer. I don't have to submit using punched cards anymore (thank goodness) but I do have to submit jobs to the batch queue and give them an estimated time the job will take to complete. This impacts the scheduling of the jobs, so if I submit a job and say it'll take 12 hours to run, then it is unlikely to start for a while. This gives me another reason to check the code very carefully, or I wait overnight and find that my code crashed after 2 seconds with a silly error!