ech@spuxll.UUCP (Ned Horvath) (06/12/84)
Salvation through suffering is not a point of view totally without merit, but suffering without cause doesn't save anything. No amount of planning will prevent a two-hour wait from revealing a typo -- and only a typo. At the other extreme, I have often witnessed students playing "shotgun programming" with the 20-minute batch turnaround: make a dozen random changes, then apply the shotgun to the one that comes closest... Should you also be barred from using word processors until you get out of college because a typewriter will build your typing skills? Or better yet, longhand will improve your penmanship? The lesson is a good one -- "you have failed before you begin because you do not plan." But that lesson, I submit, is only learned the hard way, and is orthogonal to an equally important lesson: If you fail to buy the best tools that you can afford, you are only working hard - not smart. =Ned=
liberte@uiucdcs.UUCP (06/19/84)
#R:spuxll:-49400:uiucdcs:26400015:000:1681
uiucdcs!liberte Jun 18 00:33:00 1984
/**** uiucdcs:net.lang / ech@spuxll / 6:07 am Jun 12, 1984 ****/
If you fail to buy the best tools that you can afford, you are only
working hard - not smart.
=Ned=
/* ---------- */
Much better tools are becoming available. Most timesharing systems and
even most micros still operate in a batch mode in that a program is called
to edit your text (albeit interactively, usually screen oriented), another
program is called to compile the text, and others to link, load and debug
it. The next step toward better tools is to integrate these separate steps
in the programming cycle into one environment. Other aspects of software
development that also must be included are planning and documenting.
Why not make the computer work for you? Use it as a tool to explore how
your program is working or not working. Use it to help model your software,
etc. Even now, I rarely write a program out on paper, and rarely look at
a hard copy. The tools I use make it so much easier to not use paper - even
now. But I am excited by the prospects.
My early experiences with computers (APL on IBM 1130) were interactive.
Although most co-students used cards (FORTRAN, Pascal), I was only forced to
use them twice - once to do some MIX programming (thanks Knuth). I consider
it a terrible waste of time to have anyone, especially beginning students,
using cards. Computer time is cheap in comparison. Just think of all the
non-hacker type, potential computer geniuses that have been turned off by
the inhuman treatment of humans.
Daniel LaLiberte (ihnp4!uiucdcs!liberte)
U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Computer Science
{moderation in all things - including moderation}