Three steps to follow when dealing with code
January 12th, 2009 | Published in programming
I was reading Massimo Banzi’s Getting Started with Arduino over the weekend and came across a wonderful, page-long explanation in the Troubleshooting section that all software developers should take to heart when reading, writing, and using code as it explains the general approach for each quite well.
I won’t reproduce the explanation here due to copyright restrictions, but you can read the page on Google Book Search. It boils down to this:
- Try to understand how the parts of the system work and what each component is supposed to contribute to the overall system
- Determine the component boundaries and what their responsibilities are
- Test each component individually and gradually build up the system, testing it as you go
I like his explanation so much I think it should be one of the first things drilled into software engineers. It also seems quite applicable to test driven development as well.
