Programming Techniques

Yup, there aren't any, else this page would already exist. It does :-)

The computer doesn't easily do many of the things you want it to. For example, you would like to present some data by drawing a pie chart, but 'draw', 'pie', 'chart', and all related words are simply absent from the index of each manual you turn to.

Hence, programmers spend much of their time not on programming per se, but on acquiring 'how to do it' techniques relating to numerous mundane tasks which most programming languages make annoyingly awkward (or even impossible) instead of providing what is needed in a useful 'off the shelf' form.

In the above case, perhaps you eventually find some software that can produce a pie chart. Unfortunately, it's bulky, expensive, and very inefficient at keeping the pie chart up to date as the data changes. Frustrated, you use it anyway, but the resulting program is distinctly unimpressive.

Often, the original aims of a software project are significantly cut back on account of the absence of suitable off-the-shelf solutions.

Even so, programmers spend much of their time avoiding obstacles which need never have been placed in their way.

There. I've finished ranting. I feel better now.

Programming in whatever form has been around for more or less 50 years. And we still have problems drawing pie-charts? Is code reuse IT's HolyGrail? For whatever reason we aren't building on what came before us, but reinventing the wheel every time, with the effect that in the end all we have are a bunch of wheels, and not a car in sight. -MarcoBaringer

CategorySoftwareDevelopment