28 May 2005

How to Design Software

This sounds about right:

Not surprisingly, the scientist took a unique approach to designing Mathematica. First, he tried to map out how the manual would read. If you can't say it in the manual, you won't be able to do it in the program," Wolfram said. As he wrote, he churned out code, often at the phenomenal pace of a thousand lines a day, working until his usual 6 a.m.

Unfortunately, this is completely backward from the way most people think when it comes to software. Especially if they don't write any themselves. Read more.

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