How to program something with the expectation that it will work the first time?
- by Peter Turner
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?
