Re: Fwd: Re: [Gnumed-devel] GNUmed brochures (was When will GNUmed be ready)

[Sebastian Hilbert]

On Friday 16 December 2005 10:41, Hilmar Berger wrote:
> Hi,
> On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 20:27:08 +0100
>
> Sebastian Hilbert <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > Without a clear vision, your specs will be wrong (written down or not),
> > > which will finally result in useless code.
> >
> > Absolutely not true. I have no idea what gives you this impression. A
> > vision can develop while you code. It takes longer but it is way better
> > than a vision that is screwed.
>
> I guess that is the point we disagree. You say that it is better to start
> coding even if you are not sure what you exactly want. I am quite convinced
> that making a at least rough plan (specs) before starting to code will save
> you time in the end. That is, unless you are not faster coding than
> thinking.
Agreed. I never code faster then I think. I code pretty slow and usually think 
while I code. So I kind of write pseudo code first which then gets 
transformed into real code.

I agree that a project needs specs once more than one person work on the same 
part of the code. No doubt about that. 

Right now I disagree about the way we define those specs. The tasks I work on 
are so tightly defined that specs can be discussed on this list.

Specs for other areas are certainly helpful. I chose not to invest time right 
now into specs for areas I don't work on. My decision. 

I still would like to see those specs maintained by someone with experience in 
this field. 

It's kind of like being a professor in medicine telling your student that it 
is essential to give a special treatment but still leaving it to the student 
to reasearch the whole treatment and apply it.
While the student might agree that the treatment is good because the professor 
told him so it doesn't help the patient until actually someone decides to 
treat him. But that will be after the student has researched the treatment 
while the prof could have done it just so. But did not.

So what is better here ? Bad treatment by student or *potentially* good 
treatment. 

Sebastian
-- 
Sebastian Hilbert 
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