[plt-scheme] Was HTDP 21.1.2 - Why I "don't" use the design recipe

wooks




>From: Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu>
>To: "wooks ." <wookiz at hotmail.com>
>CC: plt-scheme at list.cs.brown.edu
>Subject: Re: [plt-scheme] Was HTDP 21.1.2 - Why I "don't" use the design 
>recipe
>Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:32:32 -0400
>
>
>On Jul 13, 2006, at 5:31 AM, wooks . wrote:
>
>>For the benefit of anybody reading who thinks JSP stands for Java  Server 
>>Pages,
>>JSP (Jackson Structured Programming) is a data structure based  approach 
>>to program design. You diagrammize your input data  structures according 
>>to some very simple conventions then you merge  the data structure 
>>diagrams  into a program structure.  ... Etc.
>
>The data dimension of the design recipe is analogous to the Jackson  
>Design. I have known JSP since the very early 1980s; I am that old,  too.

Let me make this categorically and absolutely clear... I started early 
....very early... I'm not as old as you :)

>
>If the team had used JSP from the beginning, making the changes and  
>maintaining the software would be -- EASY.

Yes and it was EASY for the guy who did it. It should have been me but I was 
young and impressionable and was too busy acting like a "real programmer" so 
I agreed with the rest of the team that called it mumbo jumbo and it got 
passed on to a trainee of similar vintage who had been placed in another 
team. It came back pretty quickly.

>But they didn't. They  mumbled around like most programmers. So they had 
>s't on their hands.  And instead of starting with a good, high standard and 
>convert other  pieces on a by need basis, they continue to muddle thru and 
>create  more s't. 
>

Yes but the sad thing is that it was a failure of management. There was no 
will to integrate the training methodology into what the programming teams 
did.


>Our goal is to first train programmers on how to do it right and then  
>confront them with bad code and show them how to add decent modules  to 
>that.
>
>;; ---
>
>Comments are BAD. Beginning Scheme and R6RS don't have the expressive  
>power, however, to formulate and check "contracts". When we wrote the  
>book, we didn't have the background to do things properly. Now we do.  So 
>for now you are writing comments.
>
>;; ---
>
>Do I follow the DR for every thing I write? No. But guess what, every  time 
>I spent major time on a bug, it's because I didn't follow it.  And then I 
>hate myself.
>

It is an experience to which I too am becoming accustomed


>
>Thanks for accepting the design recipe. -- Matthias
>

Thanks for offering it. When I finish my degree and start my firm it is the 
way things will be done.