Creativity and Discipline
When I got out of school, I thought I was the best programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000-line programs that WORKED (really!). Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000-line Fortran program and then speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real Programmer will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the world won't help you solve a problem like that—it takes actual talent. | ||
| --Ed Post | ||
It's hard to explain to a fresh computer-science graduate why you need conventions and engineering discipline. When I was an undergraduate, the largest program I wrote was about 500 lines of ...
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