# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2023 Daniel Kalak
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-ND-4.0
Software design post hoc
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It is 2023-09. I am attending a class about software engineering. We
have been given a problem and a specification. First we have to make UML
diagrams for our solution. We have to finish them before writing a
single line of code. Then we have to implement that design.
I appreciate the message that writing good software is more than just
typing. But having to design everything before the first line of code is
not the right way. That is not how good software comes to be.
In fact, that isn't how anything good comes to be. You need a feedback
loop. You need to have a dialog with your creation. You cannot just
speak the word and be done with it. Make something, see how it looks,
change it, see how that looks. Small improvements, again and again. Not
perfection at first try.
The only one who doesn't need any improvements still chose to look at
his creation afterwards to see "that it was good".
Design and implementation ought to inform one another. Good hacking,
while indistinguishable from mindless typing from the outside, is
exactly that on the inside: a mindful dialog with your code.
gemini://dkalak.de/txt/design.txt