Comment Question from a Newbie (Score 1) 354
I'll be the first to admit to not being a real programmer. But I love to read coding books, and occasionally hack something out.
I read the fine article. According to the Pragmatic Programmers, one of the first principles of good coding is: DRY or Don't Repeat Yourself. In other words there should only be one primary, authoritative version of the data, and all others should reference it.
Now the article seeeemed to be arguing that the source code should be that primary source. The other folks here feel that UML or a design spec of some sort should be the primary source.
Should the code meet the spec or the spec meet the code? The Pragmatics believe that you should have a method for generating code and documentation from the specs. Is this truly doable?
I read the fine article. According to the Pragmatic Programmers, one of the first principles of good coding is: DRY or Don't Repeat Yourself. In other words there should only be one primary, authoritative version of the data, and all others should reference it.
Now the article seeeemed to be arguing that the source code should be that primary source. The other folks here feel that UML or a design spec of some sort should be the primary source.
Should the code meet the spec or the spec meet the code? The Pragmatics believe that you should have a method for generating code and documentation from the specs. Is this truly doable?
