Random Ramblings on LabVIEW Design

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It Depends ...

swatts
Active Participant

Hello Lovelies,

Sorry it's been quiet too much work to do and too little to say.

 

Part of that work is doing some on-line mentoring with DSH Workshops and it's a huge pleasure. Coming from the various sessions were the following type of questions...

 

  • What framework is best?
  • What is the best way to encourage good designs?
  • What processes are best?
  • What methodology should I use?
  • How should we approach re-use?
  • Comments Good/Bad?

 

and so on.....

 

These questions were pretty much all answered the same way "It Depends.....".

This does not seem terribly helpful on the surface, but the joy of the group means that we can then dig deeper into the issue.

 

Here's the most simplistic example of the bunch.

 

Comments Good/Bad?

I know excellent programmers that put comments all over their code, I also know lots of excellent programmers that view comments as obsolete clutter that can obscure the meaning of the code. So what is the best approach to commenting your sourcecode....

 

It Depends....

 

I have a crap super-power and that is the ability to remember all my projects, I can go into software wrote 20+ years ago and remember how it works. So for me comments can get in the way.

 

Many, many great programmers have different super-powers and some cannot remember code they wrote last week. For them comments are the mental cues they need to get into the sourcecode again.

 

Also people develop in different ways, some are systematic (Comments-->tests-->Code), but some (me) learn by doing. Both of these approaches work well for the individual.

 

My final comment on comments is a quote.

 

"Comments are not there to explain the code to other programmers, code explains the comments to the computer" 

Andy  Harris

 

So the words "It Depends" lead us to a path of better understanding. I think software engineers should employ it more.

 

I'll talk more on this with regard to design, methodology and process.

 

...........................................when I get a free moment.

Lots of Love

 

Steve


Opportunity to learn from experienced developers / entrepeneurs (Fab,Joerg and Brian amongst them):
DSH Pragmatic Software Development Workshop


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