[Courses] [C Programming] Anyone still here?

[Julie]

Linda Mayhugh wrote:
> So is there some philosophy to programming, some underpinning that is not
> syntax specific, or is it that my way of thinking isn't the same as the
> originators of programming and I'll just never genuinely understand it? Is
> it one of those things that's either intuitive to you or it isn't?

I have a CS degree, but the best example I've ever found was a
paper I wrote for a tech writing class for my ME minor ...

Okay, you've decided to make a loaf of bread (I actually used
"boil water" and came up with four pages).

Q: How do you do it?
A: Well, first you get the flour.

Q: How do you get flour?
A: I have a bag in the pantry.

Q: What is a pantry?
A: That closet over there with the door.

Q: How do I open the door?
A: There is a knob on the door which you turn, then pull.

Q: What does the bag of flour look like?
A: Would you stop asking so damned many questions!?!

Right now I'm working on a design for a filesystem access
mechanism library.  I started with "What do I want to do with
this library?"  Then I wrote down a zillion operations.  Then
I wrote down the decomposition of each operation.  Then I
looked for commonality.  Those common operations became the
second level of the library, the first being the zillion
operations which will make up the programming interface.  For
each "thing" in the second level, I broke that down until I
either had routines which didn't call other routines, or a
string of system calls.

I took my handy-dandy design and coded a prototype.  I then
looked at the prototype and found the deficiencies.  Those
were rolled back into the design as new "second level"
routines and added to the prototype.

I now had a reasonably complete prototype, so I took a test
program (I used "cp" and "mv" as my test programs ...) and
made sure the prototype worked as expected.  Once I was happy
that it did, I cleaned up the prototype and voila!
-- 
Julianne Frances Haugh             Life is either a daring adventure
jockgrrl at austin.rr.com                 or nothing at all.
					    -- Helen Keller