How to program something with the expectation that it will work the first time?

Posted by Peter Turner on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Peter Turner
Published on 2011-01-06T15:18:23Z Indexed on 2011/01/06 15:59 UTC
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debugging

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efficiency

I had a friend in college who programmed something that worked the first time, that was pretty amazing. But as for me, I just fire up the debugger as soon as I finally get whatever I'm working on to compile - saves me time (kidding of course, I sometimes hold out a little bit of hope or use a lot of premeditated debug strings).

What's the best way to approach the Dijkstrain ideal for our programs?

-or-

Is this just some sort of pie-in-the-sky old fools quest for greatness applicable only to finite tasks that no one should hope for in our professional lives because programming is just too complex?

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