Re: comments on comments

[billwolf@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,)]

From article <2325@goofy.megatest.UUCP>, by djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones):
> In an article by rjh@cs.purdue.EDU, Bob Hathaway says that he usually
> uses ADT's to do top-down design and implementation. [...] But I don't 
> usually do top-down.  I do bottom-up.  Design, implementation, test, 
> everything.  [...] I'll freely admit, there are times when top-down 
> is the way to go.  But it's not the way I do most of the programs I 
> write by myself.  I start out with a "bottom" that consists of lots of
> [general-purpose] ADT's [...].  Next I use these to form ADT's which 
> are specific to the low-level objects under consideration, etc.  

    The relevant literature states, I believe, that most good programmers
    combine the top-down and bottom-up techniques; the programmer typically 
    starts with two interfaces and a semantic gap, and then builds each 
    interface in the direction of the other in some programmer-dependent 
    ordering, ultimately bridging the gap by joining the two interfaces at 
    some point in the "middle", somewhere between the two.

    Thus, rather than argue which face of the coin is better than the
    other one, perhaps the participants in this discussion should 
    recognize that each strategy has its advantages, and that each 
    functions best when applied in conjunction with the other. 


    Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu