4 ms·
I think text editors and "instant" compile environments have skewed our perspective a bit. I'd argue that it really doesn't take a genius to write out code lon
by ezy 16y ago
I think text editors and "instant" compile environments have skewed our perspective a bit.
I'd argue that it really doesn't take a genius to write out code longhand and have it work. What it takes is the discipline to write it slowly. The way people talk about it, it sounds like he just scrawled out a program..and it worked. But what he most likely did is think a lot, write a bit, erase, think a lot and write some more. It was written in pencil.
I've personally found that if I force myself to stop, think and re-read code a lot -- not just fragments a few or 5 times, but the whole shebang in context 10 times over -- it's of consistently higher quality. Also, another way to view this is to pretend that's there's a high cost to typing it in the first place -- that helps too, but is harder to stick to :-). This seems to me to be a way of forcing your inner code reviewer to the fore.
- _delirium 16y agoI definitely notice that even for simple things. When I was pretty young, probably 8 or something, I was in a class where we had some time to play around with Logo when we finished other things. So I'd write up some stuff I wanted to try out on paper when I wasn't at the computer, and typed it in when I got to use the computer, and it worked pretty frequently. In theory I'm a much better programmer now than I was when I was 8, but I seem less good at writing chunks of error-free code that works on the first try, because there's this strong temptation to just instantly hit compile/run and see what happens, rather than writing it slowly and reading over it repeatedly.