My impression of how slow feedback cycles make for better programmers is that habits of careful thought are developed because the cost of waiting is so high. T

My impression of how slow feedback cycles make for better programmers is that habits of careful thought are developed because the cost of waiting is so high. The following are anecdotes, not data, but consider their sources: "When I learned to program, you were lucky if you got five minutes with the machine a day. If you wanted to get the program going, it just had to be written right. So people just learned to program like it was carving stone. You sort of have to sidle up to it. That's how I learned to program." - Don Knuth [0] "Before I sit down to code something, most of the instructions have already run through my head. It’s not all laid out perfectly, and I do find myself making changes, but all the good ideas have occurred to me before I actually write the program. And if there is a bug in the thing, I feel pretty bad, because if there’s one bug, it says your mental simulation is imperfect. And once your mental simulation is imperfect, there might be thousands of bugs in the program. I really hate it when I watch some people program and I don’t see them thinking." - Bill Gates [1] [0] http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Knuth/index.shtml http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Knuth/index.shtml [1] https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/bill-gates-1986/ https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/bill-gates-1986/