Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
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Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
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Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#2"Epigrams in Programming" by Alan J. Perlis has a lot more, if you like short snippets of wisdom :) https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html
> Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming.
Always preferred Perlis' version, that might be slightly over-used in functional programming to justify all kinds of hijinks, but with some nuance works out really well in practice:
> 9. It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than 10 functions on 10 data structures.
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#3"Epigrams in Programming" by Alan J. Perlis has a lot more, if you like short snippets of wisdom :) https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html > Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming. Always preferred Perlis' version, that might be slightly o…
I believe the actual quote is:
"Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious." -- Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man Month (1975)
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#4I believe the "premature evil" quote is by Knuth, not Hoare?!
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#5"Epigrams in Programming" by Alan J. Perlis has a lot more, if you like short snippets of wisdom :) https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html > Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming. Always preferred Perlis' version, that might be slightly o…
Perlis is just wrong in that way academics so often are.
Pike is right.
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#6Obvious. Why the elevation of the obvious?
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#7Obvious. Why the elevation of the obvious?
Definitely not obvious to everybody.
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#8I believe the "premature evil" quote is by Knuth, not Hoare?!
Potentially its by either (or even both independently). Knuth originally attributed it to Hoare, but there's no paper trail to demonstrate Hoare actually coined it first
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#9"Epigrams in Programming" by Alan J. Perlis has a lot more, if you like short snippets of wisdom :) https://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html > Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming. Always preferred Perlis' version, that might be slightly o…
There's also:
>I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.
-- Linus Torvalds
Re: Rob Pike’s Rules of Programming (1989)
#10Obvious. Why the elevation of the obvious?
I think for people starting out - rule 5 isn't perhaps that obvious.
> Rule 5. Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident. Data structures, not algorithms, are central to programming.
If want to solve a problem - it's natural to think about logic flow and the code that implements that first and the data structures are an after thought, whereas Rule 5 is spot on.
Conputers are machines that transform an input to an output.