The Software Lathe

When creating a piece of software I often use a process that is a lot like running a lathe to create the fancy post on the end of a banister. I start out with the gross outlines of what I want, a bunch of empty functions and TODO notes about what goes in them. This is like starting out with a piece of wood and making some pencil marks on it. Then I start running the lathe and carving.

Initially I don't get any piece right, I just go for broad shapes. Keeping moving is what's important here - if you don't understand it all immediately TODO it and move on. At some point I start being able to run the code and that's when the lathe really starts spinning. At the beginning I carve off a TODO and replace it with some code and two more, but eventually I get down to the finished details first on one part of the code and then on the whole thing. Of course the lathe metaphor breaks down in that sometimes a section is finished and then refactored into something totally different, but hey, this metaphor has some TODO in it.

Today my project of the past couple of weeks got has really started spinning at speed, after a long time of pencil marks and slow carving.