Brent Yorgey wrote:
It's really maddening to write 50,000 lines of code, eventually get it
to compile, run it, and have the program lock up and start
consuming so
much virtual memory that the entire PC becomes unstable within
seconds.
(This isn't helped by the fact that Ctrl+C doesn't seem to make
either
GHCi or GHC-compiled programs halt...) Now you have 50,000 lines of
otherwise untested code, and there's a bug within it
*somewhere*... good
luck.
Well, this is why you should test your program in bits and pieces
before you get to that point. Writing 50,000 LOC before you even run
your first test is a horrible idea in any programming language.
Horrible? Yes.
Avoidable? Not always, sadly...
(NB. 50,000 is an exaggeration. I've never written a program that large
in my entire life in any programming language I've ever used.)
The problem is that, depending on the program, sometimes you have to
write quite a lot of infrastructure before you get to the point where
there's anything finished enough to test. Obviously it's better to avoid
that happening, but that's easier said then done!
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