I thought that this was an interesting perspective on programming refinement. Sometimes it can actually be more effective to write programs as if you were just learning how to program. You can get things done faster and more effectively. Your programs don’t always have to be ultra user-friendly or refined, but many times your programs need to get things done (quickly). Check our the excerpt below for an introduction on the article I cam across over at Programming in the 21st Century (prog21.dadgum.com)

“I’m reading Do More Faster, which is more than a bit of an advertisement for the TechStars start-up incubator, but it’s a good read nonetheless. What struck me is that several of the people who went through the program, successfully enough to at least get initial funding, didn’t know how to program. They learned it so they could implement their start-up ideas.

Think about that. It’s like having a song idea and learning to play an instrument so you can make it real. I suspect that the learning process in this case would horrify most professional musicians, but that horror doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad idea, or that the end result won’t be successful. After all, look at how many bands find success without the benefit of a degree in music theory.

I already knew how to program when I took an “Intro to BASIC” class in high school. One project was to make a visual demo using the sixteen-color, low-res mode of the Apple II. I quickly put together something algorithmic, looping across the screen coordinates and drawing lines and changing colors. It took me about half an hour to write and tweak, and I was done.

I seriously underestimated what people would create……” </em>(via prog21.dadgum.com)

Write Code Like You Just Learned How to Program (prog21.dadgum.com)