Monday, March 08, 2010

Programming...

I just spent some time reading two interesting articles on programming -- both of them by Mike Taylor.

The first one essentially is an opinion on how programming has changed to become a task that mostly involves assembling different components/libraries, rather than (complex) algorithm development (+testing/debugging). It explains why this copy-paste method of building software end up being a horrible experience. I agree with some of these points -- though life without libraries would be equally horrible.


Mike has been king enough to actually compile the key comments and his response to them is posted at:


This second article was far more informative ... and enjoyable. I hope more authors that get long and detailed comments do this. It would be great if someone "thoughtfully" summarised key points in the comment-flood on good Slashdot / Reddit articles.

The key points that I tend to agree with:

1. Frameworks can be dangerous beasts that over-promise and under-deliver at a great cost to flexibility.

2. The explosion of libraries and technologies to be used even on simple applications -- best summed up by the comment at - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1166107 (I may be getting old and my rusty brain is no longer able to cope as well).

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R. Vasa

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