Re: Replacing Delphi developers

From: David Reeve (dree4456_at_big-pond.net.au)
Date: 12/04/03

  • Next message: AlanGLLoyd: "Re: Replacing Delphi developers" 
    Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 01:46:38 GMT

    "Doug Kanter" <ancientangler@hotmail.com> wrote in message
    news:MLrzb.148$c54.64@news02.roc.ny...
        [snip]

    > However, I'm curious: If Delphi didn't exist, what would be your next
    choice
    > for a 14 year old who seems to be serious about pursuing programming (and
    > whose dad is a stickler for good coding habits)?

    Some people can foresee future difficulties, and some need to fall over
    them. Good coding practice is one of those things that many people take on
    board only because they have fallen on their faces through bad coding
    practice.

    If you never do more than 1000 line programs, the need for structure and
    order is not mandatory. Indeed, I find that young people can keep track of a
    page of spaghetti better than their elders. But, and here is the rub, there
    comes a time when either because the project has become too large, or often
    because other programmers are called in to assist, that chaos management
    fails and suddenly nothing seems recoverable. Its that 'Oh no, we are going
    to have to re-write it all' sound that management just loves to hear :-).

    Delphi, as does VB, encorages 'component jockeys' and you don't have watch
    this ng for very long to come across a poster who has reached the limits of
    what you can do by hanging all your code off visual components. You know the
    ones, 'I've got these variables on this form and I need to access them from
    this other form but if I close the first form .....etc'. However, is this
    such a bad thing? In my experience, the first step is to provide a fun
    environment, and sitting a 14year old down with Turbo C or Turbo Pascal with
    nothing clickable in sight is hardly going to excite. The interface looks
    'old fashioned', and you are going to sound 'old fashioned' insisting on
    doing everything the hard way. Experience, funnily enough, can only be
    gained with age, not from sitting in lectures, nor from the choice of some
    sort of puritanical programming language that keeps you on the straight and
    narrow ....'No GOTOs here, my son!'. Programming practice is a cultural
    attribute and must be learnt from other programmers, by hanging out on a ng,
    by being part of team working on a multi 100,000 line project. Only then do
    you begin to see that this is elegant code, this is ugly code, and this
    other is a time-bomb waiting to explode.

    Dave

  • Next message: AlanGLLoyd: "Re: Replacing Delphi developers"

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