re: [gutvol-d] Annotations for students
jon said:
Most of the time one doesn't have to author an actual implementation to determine whether it will be hard or not.
i program, jon. i'm not the world's greatest programmer, but there aren't that many things that are hard to program, even for me. you just have to be willing to break the job down into small enough pieces. oh yeah, it also helps to have users who don't care how big and/or slow your application might be... but until you've actually programmed your application, you don't really know what kind of obstacles lie hidden. heck, sometimes you don't find out until end-users tell you.
Most experienced and even inexperienced programmers instinctively know the difficulty of most proposed applications.
most inexperienced programmers can't count on their "instincts". (and someone like you -- a nonprogrammer -- certainly can't.) and experienced programmers know that some projects that look easy on the outside have a lot of those hidden obstacles. but one thing i can tell you for sure, as a programmer, is that if you let a nonprogrammer tell you what you should be doing, you're in for a very rough time, unless you're paid by the hour, and hard-up for the cash. (it also helps if you are a masochist.) another thing i can tell you for sure, as a programmer, is that the fact that a format is "open and universal" doesn't mean diddly-squat in terms of whether it'll be easy to program for it.
Bowerbird's system is clearly a RPGG since I know it will NOT do everything that has been discussed for digital texts.
oh really? you seem to have some kind of super-e.s.p. when it comes to knowing about my stuff, some of which i haven't even programmed, which could provide _useful_info_ to me... heck, i can get a critique of my software _before_i_even_write_it_! that's awesome. so jon, tell me what it won't do... -bowerbird
Bowerbird wrote:
jon said:
Most experienced and even inexperienced programmers instinctively know the difficulty of most proposed applications.
most inexperienced programmers can't count on their "instincts".
(and someone like you -- a nonprogrammer -- certainly can't.)
Well, I have written over 100,000 lines of code (Fortran) over the years. I've also written some scripts. I've edited and compiled some C code. I've written a bunch of GWBasic programs. And I have a couple associates in the XML world who are programming wizards and who I often consult with regarding what can and can't be done. I've also worked in engineering teams which included C++ coders. I took several graduate level classes in computer science back in the 1980's, mostly numerical analysis. I have a pretty good "lay" understanding of contemporary programming. And in the XML world, I keep abreast of successful XML applications (e.g., web browsers) -- what they can do and can't do. Next?
and experienced programmers know that some projects that look easy on the outside have a lot of those hidden obstacles.
Certainly! I ran into this all the time when I was coding numerical simulations of complex thermochemical systems (it's fun solving over 200 non-linear, and quite unstable equations in the same number of unknowns.) But overall one can *usually* get a good grasp at the general difficulty of a programming task before sitting down and writing code. Encountering problems is the norm, and it simply takes either work-arounds, or changing the algorithm, in order to resolve. It is expected. ***** Btw, the tk3 example you gave in the other email you just sent (and I just read), the replacement for it, SOPHIE, will be *XML-based*. The developer of tk3, Bob Stein, is the major player of SOPHIE. He's been around for years and years -- his partner is very experienced. Gee, I wonder why they will now change gears and embrace XML? They are *experienced* developers with a lot of knowledge of the tk3 product (over 15 years), and *they* are switching to XML. http://www.annenberg.edu/futureofthebook/content/Mellon.pdf http://rit.mellon.org:8080/dev/projects/Sophie/ You better hurry and convince Bob Stein he needs to get rid of XML and embrace plain text! Hurry, before it is too late! Your programming experience should convince them of the folly of their ways. Jon
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Bowerbird＠aol.com -
Jon Noring