application development - separating content from function

[Max M]

Henry Baumgartl wrote:

> The more I have tried to solve these requirements in an elegant and
> efficient manner, the further I seem to stray from anything remotely
> resembling a viable solution. In other words, I can't see the forest for the
> trees anymore.


Do the simplest thing that can possible work for each part in your 
system. This is to get a system up and running as quickly as possible.

Take this system and refactor it until there is no redundancy in your 
code. But remember to allway do the simplest thing possible.

Add new convenience features on top of this. Then repeat all over.

I most often find myself in trouble when I try to design overly clever 
frameworks without understanding the area for which the software is 
developed.

The problem with this approach though is that it can be difficult to 
take the high level view needed to modularize your code.

In time it will probably be a good idea to read a few books about 
patterns. It can be a pretty advanced topic that can be hard to fit to 
the problem currently at hand. So it's better to have developed a fair 
amount of code before reading up on patterns.


regards Max M