Michael Wen's Programming Philosophy and Thoughts

Without further ado, let me introduce you to my programming philosophy. The term philosophy sounds so serious; I'm just going to describe my thoughts on programming. If you are my future employer, it's safe to assume you'd be interested to know how I approach a software project. Enjoy! Things change constantly. New things are being invented every day and if you cannot keep up with the current trends that's too bad. Although I know a lot, there are still many, many things I don't know anything about. In that case I am fully willing to learn. I am extremely quick on the uptake and can learn anything in a relatively short amount of time.

Programmers generally do not know everything about their tools before they use them, which is a common source of bugs. For example, the standard input cin in C++ ignores white spaces; the int type in Matlab remains unchanged when asked to go beyond its limit; JVM's class loader loads up the class files and attempts to optimize them. Examples go on and on. Whenever I learn something, I make sure I know as much about it as possible, either through reading or by consulting the red (as opposed to 'the green'). A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Knowing something partially could prove fatal, and I don't want that.

Before I get down to programming, I make sure I know absolutely everything about how I will implement it. I don't dive in without any planning, getting started without thoroughly grasping the requirements a very dangerous thing to do. I always map out my design and make sure every detail is taken care of. With a clear design in mind, I am always able to finish the program very quickly. The thing is that without thorough planning, it could be the case that your approach is not a good one and you end up having to change things here and there in order to get around a snag in the way, but then it creates more problems. You get the idea. This stage can take up as much as 40% of total development time and I am not exaggerating. I have real experience when I was involved with HSM projects where I needed to build an HSM Application. Getting to know the requirements and sketching the overall design took more than a week. But once I had the design in mind, I was able to complete it with great results.

I make sure the program maintains high flexibility in the sense that many things can be changed and extensions can be added fairly painlessly. In other words, I make sure I do not 'hard-code' important attributed of my program. Also, if I am designing a user interface I have to make sure it looks nice and easy to use, by which I don't mean gaudy or complex. Many programmers love to make their products stand out by making them look exceedingly showy and complex. However that's not necessary a good approach. Google is a case in point. Look at its search page. So simple and clean!!

It is definitely easy on the eyes and can be described as 'Still water runs deep': The clean user interface may belie its true identity - the very most POWERFUL Internet search engine. Anyone who uses it can vouch for this fact. I just love it! Therefore I say the user interface should be as simple as possible to appeal to users of all ages and knowledge levels. In regard to a non-UI-related program, I believe it is also the case. For example many UNIX utility programs are easy to use and have parameters that are intuitive. I believe before designing a program, one must think about its intended users and make sure it is user-friendly from their perspective.

One lesson I learned in an electrical engineering class is that whenever I don't know something, don't guess; ask someone who does. Even if you do know how to solve a problem, asking the experienced for their suggestion and advice is not a bad idea. The thing is that in the software realm there are almost always more than one way to achieve a goal. How do you know the approach you adopt is good? You gain more experience as you write more programs and learn more languages, but there's always a first time to everything, in which case if you have a mentor guiding you along you are blessed. His or her unique insight can make a huge difference.