Prototyping


> > "Brandon J. Van Every" <mylastnameruntogether@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >>Why do people talk about getting ready to do things before doing them?
> >>Like prototyping is free time that doesn't take very long or something?

Yes, making prototypes can take a long time. But you will not save time
by skipping the prototype stage. Instead, you will lose time.

I think a relevant example (which I don't have first-hand experience
of, but have heard multiple times) is the hand-making of telescople
mirrors. This is the quintessential one-man hobby: lots of time spent
in the basement with a slab of glass and jeweler's rouge, rubbing away
until you get the final product. Everyone wants a nice large mirror for
their telescope: something 8 inches or more would be great. So everyone
who wants to make their own has to choose where to start. And the
expert advice always is something like:

Make an six-inch mirror. If you want a twelve-inch mirror, make an
six-inch mirror. You will make an six-inch mirror *and* a twelve-inch
mirror in less time than it takes to make a twelve-inch mirror first.

Basically the moral is: prototype. If you don't make a prototype, what
you are making instead is *still* a prototype, you just haven't
admitted that yet. And the key to prototypes is to keep them focused
and small. If you try to skip the prototype stage, your "final product"
will be a prototype that is completely unfocused, and huge, and
therefore a very bad prototype. By the time you learn the lessons you
*should* have learned from a prototype, it will have taken you five
times as long to learn them, and be ten times more difficult to
incorporate into your product.

Every skilled discipline requires up-front preparation. Chemical plants
are made in pilot-scale first. Architects make models, artists make
preparatory sketches and studies, writers make outlines, composers use
notebooks, musicians rehearse, movie makers make storyboards, cartoon
makers make Animatics, automakers make concept cars and mockups, rocket
scientists use test stands and test flights, aircraft designers use
models in wind tunnels, naval designers pull scale models in test
tanks.

Computer programming is no different.

.

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