connect four (game)

[nospam.Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 1:11 AM, bartc <bc at freeuk.com> wrote:
> The way I write code isn't incrementally top down or bottom up. It's
> backwards and forwards. Feedback from different parts means the thing
> develops as a whole. Sometimes parts are split into distinct sections,
> sometimes different parts are merged.
>
> Sometimes you realise you're on the wrong track, and sections have to be
> redone or a different approach used, which can be done in the earlier
> stages.
>
> If I had to bother with such systematic tests as you suggest, and finish and
> sign off everything before proceeding further, then nothing would ever get
> done. (Maybe it's viable if working from an exacting specification that
> someone else has already worked out.)

Everyone in the world has the same problem, yet many of us manage to write
useful tests. I wonder whether you're somehow special in that testing
fundamentally doesn't work for you, or that you actually don't need to write
tests. Or maybe tests would still be useful for you too. Could go either way.

> As for testing, I remember in a company I worked in, a complicated circuit
> was submitted to a company that would put it into a mass-produced chip. This
> company did massive numbers of emulated tests shown on a huge printout that
> showed that all combinations of inputs and outputs worked exactly as
> intended.
>
> Except the actual chip didn't work. As for the printout, the designer took
> it home and used it as an underlay for a new carpet. A rather expensive
> underlay.

So there was something else wrong with the chip. I'm not sure what your point
is.

ChrisA