Chapter 3. The Programmer’s Approach

This chapter might appear to be the most ambiguous and vague in the book. However, it’s probably the most valuable chapter because it can save you time. Effective programming requires you to have more than just brute force, math skills, and technical ability (which are all important); you must also be efficient. For any programming task, you can do it the hard way or you can do it the easy way. This chapter will help you find the easy way. I don’t want to suggest that there are always shortcuts that make anything easy—only that avoiding overly complex solutions can save you a lot of grief.

This chapter explains conventional programming philosophies to help you:

• Write specifications.

• Prototype your creations quickly for initial review.

• Develop good style.

• Keep code and data separate.