mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) (07/18/87)
In article <965@gryphon.CTS.COM> greg@gryphon.CTS.COM (Greg Laskin) writes: <In article <880@hp-sdd.HP.COM> nick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor) writes: <>Right now, we have hackers publishing a lot of the software for <>the Amiga using a bottom-up-do-what-is-easiest-first methodology. <>Please give me a break. This only works in the classroom. < <"bottom-up" in the classroom gets you a bad grade. RealLife is <different. If just doing what I consdier bottom-up gets you a bad grade, your instructor deserves to be replaced. If you know what ADTs you need (i.e. - you have a good gasp of what your program needs to get the job done), then bottom-up makes a lot of sense. A good example of that on the Amiga would be Rob Peck's vsprite code, or Louis Mamakos' menu library. <The quality of a program is directly proportional to the quality <of the people who designed and produced it. Structured methodology <may well be useful for imposing discipline where it is required <but it does not, by itself, insure a bug-free product (or for that <matter that any product will result) just as non-adherence to <"structure" dogma does not insure a "buggy" product. You've been <had. And any program will resemble the organization that built it. Aphorisms aside, programming has gotten to the point that choosing the design methodology for a project is an important part of the project. And choosing the wrong one will get you into just as much - if not more - trouble than not choosing one at all. P.J. Plaugher (1/2 of the team that wrote "The Elements of Programming Style" and "Software Tools") has been doing a series of articles in Computer Language, entitled "Programming on Purpose." It covers different design methodologies, though I suspect he may have run out of things to talk about. I recommend going over it if this discussion has confused you. <mike -- I went down to the hiring fair, Mike Meyer For to sell my labor. mwm@berkeley.edu I noticed a maid in the very next row, ucbvax!mwm I hoped she'd be my neighbor. mwm@ucbjade.BITNET