Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Coding Without Errors
After entering a bunch of new code it's usually good to see if it will compile to get rid of all the syntax errors. Last time I discussed using statement templates to avoid typos in the code. This process of edit, compile, edit, compile is part of the reason InnerLoop got it's name. Engineers spend all of their time traveling the inner loop of edit, compile, run, and debug (that is all of their time they are not sending e-mail, surfing the web to read the news, or sitting in meetings).
Another way to cut down the number of iterations is to avoid entering any syntax errors. Of course, it's not so easy. Sure, you could spend more time to inspect the code and hope you can see more of the errors, but that just ends up taking more time.
InnerLoop offers an "Errors" tab that dynamically parses the e code as it is entered. If the parser detects any syntax errors they will show up in the Errors tab. Before even trying to compile anything it's very easy to check the Errors tab and have a look for syntax errors. The parser can't catch every error (yet), but over time I bet it will catch most of them.
Give it a try. See if you can enter new code that is syntax error free (without staring at it for hours) by looking at the Errors tab. It's pretty cool, and I bet vim can't do that.
After entering a bunch of new code it's usually good to see if it will compile to get rid of all the syntax errors. Last time I discussed using statement templates to avoid typos in the code. This process of edit, compile, edit, compile is part of the reason InnerLoop got it's name. Engineers spend all of their time traveling the inner loop of edit, compile, run, and debug (that is all of their time they are not sending e-mail, surfing the web to read the news, or sitting in meetings).
Another way to cut down the number of iterations is to avoid entering any syntax errors. Of course, it's not so easy. Sure, you could spend more time to inspect the code and hope you can see more of the errors, but that just ends up taking more time.
InnerLoop offers an "Errors" tab that dynamically parses the e code as it is entered. If the parser detects any syntax errors they will show up in the Errors tab. Before even trying to compile anything it's very easy to check the Errors tab and have a look for syntax errors. The parser can't catch every error (yet), but over time I bet it will catch most of them.
Give it a try. See if you can enter new code that is syntax error free (without staring at it for hours) by looking at the Errors tab. It's pretty cool, and I bet vim can't do that.
# posted by Jason Andrews @ 9:22 PM 
