Programming tips

In the larger example above, we were following the advice given here.

• Proceed with small steps
  • Try to separate the program into several sub-problems and work on only one sub-problem at a time
  • Always test that the program code is advancing in the right direction, in other words: test that the solution to the sub-problem is correct
  • Recognize the conditions that require the program to work differently.
• Write as "clean" code as possible
  • Indent your code
  • Use descriptive method and variable names
  • Don't make your methods too long, not even the main method
  • Do only one thing inside one method
  • Remove all copy-paste code
  • Replace the "bad" and unclean parts of your code with clean code
• If needed, take a step back and assess the program as a whole. If it doesn't work, it might be a good idea to return into a previous state where the code still worked. As a corollary, we might say that a program that's broken is rarely fixed by adding more code to it.

Using OOP to separate concerns also makes it easy for testing those objects in isolation.