Coding without a Compiler
I’m between jobs right now which has given me the time to do some programming for myself. Sadly, my beloved w500 Lenovo laptop (8G RAM and 500M HD) had to be returned to my employer and now I’m reintroducing myself to my neglected MacBook Pro. However I’m programming in C#…without a compiler (yes, humble reader, I could install Mono but I haven’t). I’ve found the experience quite eyeopening. It’s helped me think more about what I’m working on than the syntactic correctness of the implementation. I’ve honed the design down to specific classes and their composition. However, it won’t compile. I’m sure there is a property or member variable I haven’t defined or misspelled. That doesn’t matter. Programming without a compiler has forced me to think more about the design than if it actually works. Once I’m sure the the design is right I can fix the code and even proper execution.
When one dimension of complexity is suspended, it’s easier and liberating to focus on what remains. I highly recommend it.
