<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Marco Morazan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:morazanm@gmail.com">morazanm@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div class="Ih2E3d">On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 12:38 PM, David Einstein <<a href="mailto:deinst@gmail.com">deinst@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> > I do not think that programming per se is or needs to be a particularly<br> > difficult endeavor.  With a scant few exceptions, we are not engineers or<br> > scientists,<br> <br> </div>But programming IS a difficult endeavor. It requires careful study and<br> a disciplined approach to development. Furthermore, livelihoods and,<br> sometimes, lives depend on the correct functioning of software. </blockquote><div><br>The same is true of the guy that does my brakes.  <br><br></div></div></div></blockquote><br></div><div>Now that my students dutifully test every method in Java - because I gave them a tool that does not increase the difficulty of program design beyond what they already are doing --- I looked to see what the others do. Out of 20 popular Java textbooks not one asks for anything that resembles tests the way we know them. Maybe some println statements. They all include a two page sections where they explain that testing is important and people do it in real life.</div><div><br></div><div>Our students learn from designing examples and tests. (And it also makes them write smaller methods, delegate more - because it is very hard to test a monster method that does twenty different things.) </div><div><br></div><div>It may not be science, but it is a disciplined practice.</div><div><br></div><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Courier New'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>-- Viera</div><div><br></div></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></body></html>