Re: Detail first? Or Big Picture?

OK. might as well chime in here: I'm with you - do it a bit at a time and make sure it works type of guy. I like to have a nice short clean main path and add in all the bells and whistles as I go. There's a kind of Mainframe Batch Program mentality that surely works dividends with Event driven processes. The do it in increments approach works for me in that it is satisfying to have something that works, the development process often bullet proofs the existing code, and I uncover gotyas at a very early stage.
The grand Design approach, while rigorous, is often why Grand Corporate and Government IT projects fail miserably, overrun, and cost billions more than projected. Many of the gotyas don't surface till the whole is cobbled together for "system test". That is too late: it worked in the old days because there only was batch testing - with interactive testing and development, especially of n tier projects, and the complexity of distributed systems, bolting it all together at the end is disastrous.

"MM" <kylix_is@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:o42qt39estidq487a6rh1p2h7s4qjddavt@xxxxxxxxxx
What do YOU do when your classic VB project is nearing completion? Do
you spend a few days "tidying up"? Removing those redundant comments
that could be confusing rather than helpful if left in? What is your
development style? To address the details first and build your product
from them; or look at the big picture and decide how the application
is going to be used, knowing that the details will sort themselves out
later?

I am firmly in the latter camp. I always build some scaffolding, hang
some windows and doors off them (controls), stand back and contemplate
the overall look at feel. Maybe I'll remove a window and add a
chimney. Or change the angle of the roof pitch, or the colour of the
bricks. All these bricks and mortar are a metaphor for my "school" of
design - Rapid. Application. Development. Can't be rapid enough in my
book. I know of others who spend weeks designin' away, with ne'er a
sign of any application taking shape. But they are happy. They keep
their RAD picture in their heads. Fair enough.

Now I am approaching the end of my project, well, its initial
prototype at least, and I am in the process of removing those
redundant comments, removing obsoleted procedures or functions called
OldMakeLongInt or SearchString_2, which a sudden insight when I got
down to the details made me think of a better way to do something.

I am completely comfortable with my approach, though I know others
won't be. Finally, I'll probably add line numbers and error handlers
everywhere, though as I have long since had an add-in to automate this
task, it won't be the chore it once was.

MM

.

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