What is easy and obvious depends so much on one's background. Several years ago we tried to teach a woman, at the time in her 80's, how to use a Windows computer. Total failure. The real problem was that she could see no use in or reason to use a computer. She had no interest in learning it.
Anyone who thinks that today's computer technology is intuitive, obvious and easy should go to an old folk's home and try to teach them to use a smart phone. But for a four-year-old. Piece of cake. On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > I am convinced that most code is not understandable to most people, > regardless of the language it is written in. When I look at how the > computer industry has progressed, I see this more and more. People write > huge amounts of code, don't document it very well, then other people use > arbitrary bits of it and things sort of just freeze at that point. > > Personally, also, when I read code in any language, I do not feel I really > understand it until I see what it does to representative data. > > So clear descriptions, simple data, and good labels are where I would focus > most of my efforts in making code readable. And I would also expect that > most of my code is going to be unread by most people (and I'll get dinged > for utterly random stuff by people who do read it). > > I think the point of readability is: you are going to need to be able to > fix it, yourself, when it breaks, so you need to make it readable for > yourself. And for that purpose, coming back and trying to read it a month > or so after you've written it can be a good exercise. > > Also, I've found that documenting code is a great way of making code > simpler. It's quite often the case that it's easier to change the code to > be easy to document than it is to document some coding quirks that > originally seemed to be a good idea. So if you want readable code, another > good thing to do is have a technical writer (or at least someone reasonably > literate) work with the programmer to document it for some audience. > > Of course, the most important thing is making sure that it works. > > Thanks, > > -- > Raul > > > > > On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 5:23 PM, Kip Murray <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > How does one write understandable J? I offer my newt adverb below which > > uses spaces to promote understandability. > > > > Another technique might be Linda's "bottom up" style of first showing > > pieces then putting the pieces together. What are your techniques? > Please > > illustrate. > > > > We would like at least to understand our own code when we come back to > it! > > > > NB. Newton's method > > > > newt =: 1 : 0 > > t =. y > > h =. 1 % 512 > > whilst. t ~: s do. > > s =. t > > t =. s - +: h * (u s) % (u s + h) - u s - h > > h =. h % 2 > > end. > > t > > ) > > (2 - *:) newt 2 NB. Find root of 2 - *: near 2 > > 1.41421 > > (2 - *:) newt _2 NB. Find a root near _2 > > _1.41421 > > > > > > > > -- > > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
