You code a line at a time

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One thing I see my students doing all the time is trying to write an 80-line program in one shot. Then, when it blows up, they are overwhelmed and have no idea where to find the bugs.

After many, many years of programming, I find myself sometimes testing every line of code I write. Other times, there may be four or five lines that make no sense unless they are all written at once, so that they must be tested as a group. If I have to write ten lines without a test, I am extremely uncomfortable!

Comments

  1. Samson Corwell5:43 PM

    I've written at least 30 pseudorandom number generators, 15 stream ciphers, and 15 block ciphers without facing too many errors. Sometimes a digit that's different from what it should be just blends in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Scott11:15 PM

    So.... you teach economics...
    and poli-sci...
    and philosophy...
    and... programming?

    What?!? I would think it was a nightmare keeping up with all of that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. James Caton11:51 PM

    It saves a lot of hassle. Nothing worse than confronting a few bugs simultaneously!

    ReplyDelete

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