Another "Dreaming In Code" Excerpt

In one part of the book Dreaming In Code, a programmer named Andy Hertzfield describes his programming style. (The excerpt is found on page 67 and page 68 of the book.) I wanted to post this excerpt, because I find my own programming style is similar to Andy's:

"I just designed it and wrote something. There wasn't all the discussion. My way of writing code is, you sculpt it, you get something as good as you can, and everything's subject to change, always, as you learn. But youclimb this ladder of learning about your problem. Every problem's unique, so you have to learn about each problem, and you do something and get a better vantage point. And from that vantage point you can decide to thrwo it out. Code is cheap, but often tells you what to do next."

After I read that, I didn't feel so bad about scraping so much code as I move through the different iterations of a program. It made me realize that this form of programming might not be as wastefull as I thought it was.

"Code is cheap, but often tells you what to do next."

I like it. Reminds me of something that Jody Garnett often says: "Let's stop talking and actually do something."

The Sunburned Surveyor