On Feb 22, 8:21 am, val bykovsky <v...@vtek.com> wrote:
> Hi Edward and All:
> To me your post is very interesting and needs
> time to think it through and respond
[]
> Imagine a 'programmable' (that is, flexible, reconfigurable)
> material. Each constraint is in fact a control which drives an
> iterative process of reconfiguring the material so that the
> constraint is matched. Sure, the material can be pre-configured
> ('the art of programming') to make its programming "more efficient"
> (vs. doing it from scratch).
> So, looking from this angle, you came to the heart of programming.
> Unit tests is a reference/control info to incrementally build-up
> a program - 'configure' a programmable material. To me, this is
> how animals (and some humans) 'effortlessly' program their behavior
> under control of 'environmental challenges'.
> Sure, this line of thinking has a long history, but in the
> programming world i think this is relatively fresh and exciting
> development, and your focus on tools for code exploration and
> understanding seems to me extremely valuable. Actually, this
> 'probing' technique is applicable to exploration of the whole class of
> 'complex systems'.
> Does this 'angle' make any sense?
this sounds like what I call scaffolding. it prerceeds unittesting and
is the only thing that works in the initial design. stub programs,
print of info, more typical things you do while getting set to
refactor are all scaffolding, support structure removed while cleaning
uo. unittests can be a temporary or permanent part of this. subject to
bit rot like any other code, unittests too early become an unnecessary
hindrance to progress.
have you read any of edwards earlier posts? he has been unittesting
for years, I think the new workflow mentioned where valid unittests
are moved into one or more files/trees helps maintain sanity yet while
with scaffolding all you do is remove it and on to more progress.
nobody can see the exact process, it leaves little trace beyond
intermediate commits and backups. unittests are heavy scaffolding is
light and infinitely adaptable although not always repeatable in the
way unittests are. it I submit is indispensable while unittests, say
what you will, are still optional.
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