Writing good programs

Here's the actual presentation:

how_to_program.ppt

Here's some notes:

Think!

• Learning to think about your own process

The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris - Larry Wall - http://www.netropolis.org/hash/perl/virtue.html

Owning your code

• Fixing broken windows
• Signing it
• Deliberate coding and coding by coincidence
• Documentation

Orthogonality

• Breaking code into parts and making them separable one from the other

Learning your tools

• Your text editor
• Your language
• Learning several languages
• Differences between languages (high-level, low level)

Assume you will make mistakes

• Make code tests
• Use code repositories

Talk to the duck

• Describe the problem to someone or something to aid thinking