>But it's 90% of the fun and I don't see how any theory of programming
>can be taken seriously unless personal enjoyment is taken into account.

And that is absolutely true because of flow. Flow is what distinguishes
the person who wants to be a programmer from the person who does
not. Flow is what distinguishes the programmer who is being very productive
(which is not always the same as being effective) from the programmer
who is not being very productive. Flow is why the revision to "The Mythical
Man-Month" cited RAD as one of the most important new approaches
(well, it was possibly new back then). Flow is why DeMarco's 1980 unequivocal
recommendation that coders be forbidden to test (in the extreme
case, not even allowing them to compile!) has been left in the ditch of
history instead of being broadly adopted. Flow is the principle reason
why "extreme programming" is finds broad appeal among individual
programmers (and the parts of that plan that are often dropped off
in practice are those that fail to contribute to flow, such as pair
programming).

Anytime you want to design a process that involves programming,
flow, and providing the elements that maintain it, must be central
to the design for it to succeed with real people.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce
PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/

Reply via email to