2010/7/20 Lee Spector <lspec...@hampshire.edu> > > On sketching-in-nonlinear-order, that's definitely how I write too, both > code and prose
> (and email!). This explains a lot of things :-p (just kidding) > This has implications not only for the automatic build behavior we were > discussing but also for the structure-based editing discussion from a week > or two ago. If you piece together your code in a nonlinear way then the > assumptions that structure-based editors sometimes make -- e.g. that > whenever you type "(" you want an immediately following ")" -- will usually > be wrong and it will be a nuisance to undo all of the system's > "helpfulness." > > -Lee > > On Jul 19, 2010, at 7:11 PM, j-g-faustus wrote: > > > > I normally start out with a sketch or skeleton of the whole project, > > with multiple files and lots of partial drafts, and fill out the > > details over time (days or weeks). > > Being able to finish and test functions one by one is one of the great > > benefits of REPL-based development IMHO. I wouldn't want anything that > > forces me to have every file in a loadable state all the time. > > > > Perhaps relatedly, someone doing a usability study of how newspapers > > journalists work told me that journalists (at least the ones she were > > studying) didn't write articles by starting at the beginning and > > finishing at the end. > > Instead they wrote down snippets, sentence fragments, nifty turns of > > phrase etc. in whatever order they happened to think of them, spread > > the fragments out on the screen and copy/pasted the parts together to > > assemble a complete article. > > According to her this was a surprisingly efficient way of working, > > they could finish an article in no time compared to writing it in a > > more traditional start-to-finish fashion. Perhaps because the time you > > need to think of what to say about X can be spent to say something > > about Y. > > > > This is somewhat similar to my preferred way of working with code, I > > start out with a jumble of fragments and assemble them into complete > > code over time. > > The Java development style where you need the whole file (or even > > worse, the whole project) to compile in order to test a single method > > is a lot slower, at least for me. > > -- > Lee Spector, Professor of Computer Science > School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College > 893 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002-3359 > lspec...@hampshire.edu, http://hampshire.edu/lspector/ > Phone: 413-559-5352, Fax: 413-559-5438 > > Check out Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines: > http://www.springer.com/10710 - http://gpemjournal.blogspot.com/ > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with > your first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com<clojure%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en