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A comment on Neal Stephenson: Programmer as a writer. Do it right the first time.

Re:Neal Stephenson: Programmer as a writer. Do it right the ... by bgutierrez on Thursday July 10, 2008 @05:09PM (#242914)
From now on, I'm writing all my code on a legal pad first.
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Re:Neal Stephenson: Programmer as a writer. Do it right the ... by ggruschow on Thursday July 10, 2008 @07:29PM (#243037)
Me too. Like Andre: http://www.multicians.org/andre.html
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Re:Neal Stephenson: Programmer as a writer. Do it right the ... by npk on Thursday July 10, 2008 @07:33PM (#243042)
[I'm sorry for decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio.] Andre is the man.
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Re:Neal Stephenson: Programmer as a writer. Do it right the ... by tokipin on Friday July 11, 2008 @05:22AM (#243383)
i actually write a lot of code on paper, when i'm figuring out how to do something algorithmy or otherwise tricky
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Re:Neal Stephenson: Programmer as a writer. Do it right the ... by albertcardona on Friday July 11, 2008 @05:43AM (#243389)
I use a prompt (usually python), which amounts to the same: scratch paper. The nice parts one can copy-paste and edit as needed.

Real scratch paper I use only for drawing angles and lines when dealing with geometry.

I recall Donald Knuth stating he programs by sitting next to a big trash bin and writing down all code in pieces of paper, most of which he discards.

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