How to actually write a program?

[Peter Hansen]

Peter Kleiweg wrote:

> I have been doing it the hard way, programming C with only
> Emacs, no integrated software development platforms. This makes
> for very efficient and powereful tools, running directly from
> the command line (encouraged by using Linux), but you can only
> go so far.

I disagree.  I do development the same way, after years of
trying out a variety of fancier and fancier GUI IDE RAD
things which in the end primarily served to lock me into
the vendor's tools and didn't really improve my productivity.

Now I do everything with Scite and the command line, with
very rare side trips to use "import pdb; pdb.set_trace()".
That's whether I'm doing GUI work, web work, realtime
embedded software in C or assembly, network programming,
multithreaded stuff, or anything else.

I'm more productive than I've ever been and I haven't yet
found a limit to how far I can go with this combination,
now that I'm using test-driven development and lots of
other practices from XP.

> I started programming twenty years ago, with GW-Basic and
> assembler. Later C, Prolog, Oberon (briefly), PostScript,
> Tcl/Tk, JavaScript, Perl, ELisp, R. For me, the question is not,
> how do I start programming, but how do I become a software
> devellopper. I have peeked at wxPython and Boa Constructor, and
> feel like a beginner, like I know nothing about writing
> software.

My advice to someone starting out, like the OP, or to
someone who has 20 years under his belt is the same.
If you want to be a good software developer, start
to look at the ideas coming out of the agile development
movement, and focus more attention on test-driven
development than on anything else.  It alone will
revolutionize the software industry.

-Peter