Elegance in programming, interfaces and documents

[Joaquim Baptista <px -at- EASYSOFT -dot- PT>]

Greetings to all,

In programming, we usually find one of two situations:
1) The program achieves its functionality by combining a small set
   of generic functions.  Also, each function is simple and mostly
   independent of the others.
2) The program is ridden with multiple pieces of similar but not
   identical functionality.  It is hard to pinpoint where does the
   program do something.

Case (1) is an elegant program, and a joy to the eye.
Case (2) is best avoided.

I find a similar difference when I compare MS-Word with ClarisWorks.
- In MS-Word, each major function has its own interface element
  to do something.
- In ClarisWorks, the same generic interface element will work wherever
  it makes sense.

For me, elegant documents explain each concept once, combine the
explanations in a meaningful whole, and have simple thought structures at
all levels.  It is usually simple to navigate within these documents.

The worst technical documents that I know are the IBM software manuals.
They can repeat the same stupid warning on every page, yet force you to
sift through hundreds of similar but not identical pages looking for basic
information hidden within procedures.

Back to work now...

--
Joaquim Baptista, alias pxQuim            Precisa de uma contabilista?
- px -at- easysoft -dot- pt                                 (01) 8684294
- http://www.fct.unl.pt/~px/