Success by the seat of my pants

Currently I am a very happy programmer.

And a happy man.

I finished the server code in an afternoon, which isn't anything to be proud of or ecstatic about, there are most likely hundreds upon thousands of programmers who could do more in less time.  However, I wasn't exactly inspired during the writing of the program, so I found it difficult to concentrate at many points during the coding.

But the main reason I'm so happy is because I was able to do this in one shot.  Often times when I being a program, I will complete a section of code that should work, only to find out that it not only doesn't work, it usually works in a way contrary to the specified purpose.  Iterative programming is the name of the game, however I tend to come up with a game plan and try to execute it in one sitting without having to test every little tiny bit.

I understand that this is how games and programs should be done.  Make one piece work, save, submit, and then make the next tiny change.  However there comes times in my coding where I get on "a roll" and I feel that if I stop I will lose momentum and steam.  I'm stubborn when it comes to things like this.  I could be a lot better at iterative development if I would give it all of my attention instead of splitting my coding time between "this should work onto the next topic without testing" and "get one thing working at a time"

But today, at least, it paid off.  I knew what the code was supposed to do, I was careful in my implementation, and when I went to run my program, it worked.  Not the first try, but on the third when I fixed a casting error.

I would say this is an unusual case because the program was so linear and inter-dependent it didn't really open itself up to iterative testing and development.

I know Professor Keenan would call bullshit, and I'm 99.99% sure he would be right.  Everything can be, and should be, tested piece by piece.

But every once and a while it's nice to have a bit of validation that I understand what I'm doing and when I don't make tiny errors that the core of my programs still work and work well.

The best part about all of this is, though, that I'm ahead on my homework.  I'll actually be able to relax this weekend.

Knock on wood.

-Kevin