4 ms·
It depends a lot on the problem domain. Sometimes rapid prototyping is a useful tool, but the benefits rapidly diminish in the face of complexity. In my experie
by cgearhart 12y ago
It depends a lot on the problem domain. Sometimes rapid prototyping is a useful tool, but the benefits rapidly diminish in the face of complexity. In my experience with moderately complicated scientific and mathematical software, there isn't anything to prototype - either it works, or it doesn't. If you aren't deliberate about design choices, the bugs can be really devious to find and squash.
- overgard 12y agoI think the implication of this article is that fast = reckless, but I disagree with that. Sometimes you recognize that you need more data points, and writing something that works will move you closer to the correct solution, even if the first version isn't perfect. But yeah, it depends on the problem domain. If you're asking me how to build a website, I can probably have a pretty solid idea of what that code should look like. It's not a novel problem, usually. If you're asking me to build, I don't know, a voxel renderer and you're trying to figure out if an octree is the right way to go for representing the data, or you need to do something more exotic, I'm gonna have to play around a bit.