in reply to Re: Too Many Ways To Do It
in thread Too Many Ways To Do It

My experience of programming with other languages could be written on the back of a postage stamp and still leave room for a shopping list... so I guess this IS a general problem. It's a GOOD problem, of course. I mean, if you have a passport you have the PROBLEM of deciding what other countries to visit. I'd be very interested to know how monks solve this problem. My method is to burrow deeper and deeper into all the different ways of doing it and then jump up from my desk, run down to the kitchen and put on a jug of espresso, come back to my desk and go ahead with whatever was the last solution I came up with. I feel this might be open to optimsation...

FWIW I'd think perl might even be a bit tricksier than other languages in this way, because not only do you have all the different core Ways To Do It, but you've also got CPAN. I mean, how 'nhell do you ever make a rational choice of templating module?

§ George Sherston

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Iterative learning...
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Sep 19, 2001 at 21:05 UTC
    1. Find a problem you want to solve
    2. Implement solution A
    3. Walk away, as the problem is solved
    4. 6 months later, run into problem again, but in a different context
    5. Implement solution B, cause you're 6 months better at Perl and wince whenever you remember solution A
    6. Repeat 4 or 5 times, wincing less and less cause solution E is only marginally better than solution D
    7. Log onto PM and realize that others have solution M.
    8. Cry for a while because it's so elegant and simple
    9. Rewrite 3 years of code to use solution M
    10. Realize you didn't understand solution M at all
    11. Cry for a longer while cause you just introduced 10 new bugs and hadn't backed up your code
    12. Rewrite again, using solution F, which takes what little you understand of solution M and grafts it onto solution E
    13. Read PM again in 6 months and realize you not only do understand solution M, but found a better way!
    14. Dance around your cube for an even longer while (gotta make up for all that crying!)
    15. Post solution N and get 100 XP for being cool
    16. Delete 3.5 years of code cause it's all worthless crap that a module you just wrote with solution N does it all, and more
    17. Go on with your life.

    ------
    We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

    Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

[reply]
Re: Re: Re: Too Many Ways To Do It
by perrin (Chancellor) on Sep 19, 2001 at 21:39 UTC
    I mean, how 'nhell do you ever make a rational choice of templating module?

    Well, you could start by reading my guide.

[reply]

In Section Meditations