Action-Oriented Programming
I just have to share this great term that my brother Brian came up with a while back on a Joel on Software discussion board: Action-Oriented Programming.
Regarding motivation to get started implementing a product idea once you have one:
Whatever you do, do something.
Us programmers, we tend to overanalyze things. Lots of up-front design, trying to decide if it’s the right thing to do, not sure if we have enough education yet, etc. But from what I’ve read about successful entrepreneurs, they are DOERS. They’re Action-Oriented.
So I’m inventing a new term:
Action-Oriented Programming: writing the damn program instead of thinking about writing it.
haha - that’s great! I’m starting to think that a lot of these frameworks and patterns are a form of procrastination through over-engineering. It’s similar to people who spend hours a day reading blogs about ‘getting things done’.
re: ‘getting things done’ — yes, exactly!
I can totally relate to this. I am one of those people who over-analyzes just about everything. Not to say that it is a bad quality, but it must only be used when it is appropriate.
I like this term. When I developer I do a little up front thinking about the problem then start working my ideas out in the code. When I get it stable, I go back and see how I can organize it and make it fit into a better design pattern before going to production. I feel I get a lot more done this way, even though I wind up with a little extra throw away code, I can always track my progress through my SVN commits as well as showing my clients/boss something that is always working. There is a lot to be said about getting it done vs perfection.