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TL;DR
Both methodologies have real world applications.
Both methodologies can be overapplied and lead to inefficient results.
Paul Graham is focusing solely on newbie programmers, overstating himself, or he's overapplying his methodology to the point of being detrimental.
This is classic agile vs waterfall
Agile and Waterfall are two development ideologies ...
5
What they teach you in school is not all wrong, it is just one verifiable way to teach you to think things over and not rush to the first goal you can think of.
The sketching process you describe using your code editor is basically the same as writing out Nassi-Schneiderman diagrams upfront on paper. The point is to not skip the planning phase and to remain ...
4
"Sketching" and "Upfront Design" don't necessarily contradict but complement each other. They are somewhat related to bottom-up and top-down approaches. It's necessary to have a big picture of what you're building, but the building process can be made more efficient if you work with building blocks that were developed bottom-up.
Just as a ...
2
This phenomenon is called survivorship bias, with the part about highly competitive careers being especially relevant. In particular, to correct Paul Graham on this:
As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to program in college was
all wrong. You should figure out programs as you're writing them, just
as writers and painters and architects do.
No, I ...
2
Not all programs are the same.
Strategies that work for programs that search a problem space for one correct answer are different from enterprise software that's heavy with ever-changing business logic. "It depends" is never a satisfying answer, but the bottom line here is that there's no answer to your title question without looking at specifics.
...
2
It's important to realize this question of how to approach the software development process is not only about what software is being written but also who is writing it and in what environment. I think the reason there are so many different opinions on how software development should be approached is because different methods work best for different people. ...
1
I clearly remember that I definitely did this when I started to program. While I was young and fresh and was just getting to know the world of code, this was what I did most of the time.
But as time went on and I gathered experience, I started relying on this less and less. To the point where I don't do it at all today anymore. The reason is that with ...
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