21–30 of 130 posts
If I find myself getting stuck in the cycle of "this can be written better, I'll just spend 2 hours improving it rather than finishing the framework" I stop, I think about it, then I leave the working-but-probably-crap code in place and move on.
Once the framework is in place, then I start making things better, one area at a time.
Instead, I would sculpt the entire piece of art roughly, almost unrecognizably, and then target large parts of the sculpture. Details like ears and eyes might even never get done, depending on how the requirements change for the sculpture.
I always approach writing software the same way, so the first iteration is just a hardcoded piece of software that just shows me that it will actually work, and then I iterate and start smoothing out all of the sharp edges, of which there are a ton.
This is really kind of the whole idea behind the "red, green, refactor" mantra. The point isn't to write perfect code right out of the gate, it's to write working code. Once the test is green, then you can refactor as necessary with the confidence that you aren't going to accidentally break things (as the test will backstop you). Ironically, I think this is something that affects seasoned programmers more than new on…
Also kind of related - programming by "wishful thinking". You first lay out the flow of the program as calls to high level functions which don't yet exist, and then go back and fill in the functions as you can. The first few SICP video lectures are all about this style, and I found the idea simple but very useful to avoid trying to hold too much of a problem in your head at once.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved
from a simple system that worked.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes I'm surprised at the lack of parallels between writing long-form articles and writing code. How many people draw a general outline of their program, what they want each part to do, and how the whole thing should be layed out? Who plans before they start coding it?
I think these types used to be derogatorily referred to as "cowboy coders" in the 90's by overly process oriented developers who came from an era of mainframes and punchcards. I think a big shift in modern software development came about when people finally realized that developing software is by nature a "messy" process. Loose text files, REPL sessions filled with red lines on the console, randomly scribbled boxes w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes I'm surprised at the lack of parallels between writing long-form articles and writing code. How many people draw a general outline of their program, what they want each part to do, and how the whole thing should be layed out? Who plans before they start coding it?
I think these types used to be derogatorily referred to as "cowboy coders" in the 90's by overly process oriented developers who came from an era of mainframes and punchcards. I think a big shift in modern software development came about when people finally realized that developing software is by nature a "messy" process. Loose text files, REPL sessions filled with red lines on the console, randomly scribbled boxes w…
I remember when Facebook's front page code leaked. I am no PHP expert, but it was pretty ugly code. Probably today you couldn't get hired at Facebook if you wrote code like that. http://techcrunch.com/2007/08/11/facebook-source-code-leaked... I've heard many arguments where people will tell you, it won't scale. Or you're doing it all wrong by writing quick and dirty procedural code. Quite frankly scaling is about the…
I'm certain I stole it from someone here on HN years ago (whoever it was, I owe you a beer!), but I've always called this a "Maserati Problem". That is, it's something I can think about while I'm driving down the road in my Maserati that I've purchased with money my startup has made already.
Scaling, in most cases, is a problem very much like "where am I going to store all this money that's pouring in?!" If you have it, you've already won.
But of course, before starting any major project, the first thing any developer should do is map out at least a basic mental design of the program - even if that map isn't written in pseudo-code or in a form of a flow chart.
I would still go one step further and at least apply the strategy pattern/polymorphism when you have a large if/else/case block going beyond 2 or 3 conditions in a controller or model or something. (assuming MVC web apps)
The fact is you can write out some ugly code directly in a controller where it might get some code working fast and prevent the freeze up of your output, but once working you should immediately move it to the appropriate place like a model or library, and apply a basic OO strategy pattern (perhaps not with factory/interfaces etc until needed later) where appropriate to cut down on spaghetti/nested conditionals.
This really does not take much more time than stopping at working code that is ugly, and is a good middle ground where it is not painful to return to later.
There is still no good excuse for "taking a dump in the corner" of your code base just to get a marginal gain in output.