On 1 Jan 2006, at 03:28, Jeremy Zuckerman wrote:
i ran into this very design problem with a really big patch i've been working on for months. now i have to rebuild with a better implementation.
I think it's true that your second attempt at a programming project is often much better than your first. it's difficult. I can usually see my second attempt taking form before completing 50% of version one. I guess the trick is knowing when to throw away version 1.
a friend of mine put this kind of thing very well in a couple sentences: 'Remember that the UI is the Engine's slave. It let's the user input values, and reports values of the Engine as fast as it can, with a lower priority than the engine.'
you get a similar thing with databases. people design the data tables to match the UI - then expect SQL to sort it all out!
i wish i understood this before but this is how we learn (especially if we don't have a programming background!).happy new year! cheers, jeremy