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Coding is when we carefully write down our solution to a problem. (Manager pushes paper, pen and a list of problems in front of you and demands, “Now write, ju
by Nevermark 9mo ago
Coding is when we carefully write down our solution to a problem.
(Manager pushes paper, pen and a list of problems in front of you and demands, “Now write, just write! And fast!”)
- beej71 9mo agoThis is what I tell my students. The hard part of programming is the understand and plan phases and barely any of that takes place at the keyboard. The rest is just typing in your completed plan. And if you find yourself going in circles while you're typing in code, you probably didn't complete the plan phase.
- danielbln 9mo agoSo where do you iterate? Most plans don't survive contact with reality, and all that.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- beej71 9mo agoTo elaborate a little, I told them that usually during this process you'll bounce back and forth a little bit. You'll notice while your coding something up there was something you didn't understand and so you drop back, understand, and then move forward again. So there's some back and forth, but hopefully general progress is forward. As for iteration, there's a little bit of iteration in every phase. But there's also iteration over the entire process. Once you've understood the problem, come up with a plan, coded it up, and look back to see what could have been done better, it might be time to re-understand the problem.