For someone who is retired, I am spending a lot of evening, sometimes very late evening hours sitting at the keyboard. For a while now I have been reviewing this function, making tentative stabs at how it should be changed to meet the new requirements.
I write code, it doesn't look quite right. I go back and talk to the user about how the finished product should work, then I go poke at it some more. But tonight is different. The back and forth is done, and I know exactly how it is supposed to work. Now I just have to actually make it do that. And that really is the easy part.
I zero in on where to put the first change. This is collecting a bit of information that gets painted on the screen at the very back end. I change it, test, it breaks and I fix it. I keep going through that, until that part of it is doing exactly what I want, then move on to the next bit. I know it sounds like trial and error, but it really isn't. Because I now I have a clear picture in my head as to exactly how it should work. I just have to get past the part where after all these years at a keyboard I still can't type.
I probably do this differently than most people would. I have three changes to make. This first one is the easiest, but I will make this change and then go through the entire process of testing, to make sure it appears where it is supposed to at the back end. That done I can start on the second bit.
My experience has shown me that it is a whole lot easier to find one bug than to find three. So if I can make sure that this works as intended all the way through the process then if there is an issue with change number two, then I will know it really is about change number two and not have to try and first figure out which change made it crash.
It is just about nine o'clock at night, because Xfinity decided shutting off the internet to this neighborhood in the middle of my work day was a perfectly fine idea. And no, I can't bill them for the $100/hour I missed. But for now, I have just about finished my glass of wine so it is time to test.
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