Reflections

I am starting to put the finishing touches on a watered down version of and SQL library and wanted to record some of my reflections regarding the project.

1. Plan, Plan, Plan, and then plan some more: Not enough planning was done on the project and this caused us lots of hardships later on down the road. I feel as if we were able to recover but a better api could have been created had we planned more in advance.

2. Focus on performance the first time around: I generally have a high focus on performance while I am coding but when the project got big and I got tired I felt like I got sloppy and the performance suffered. I am now going back and optimizing but if I had just done it the first time around I would have saved myself some time.

3. A single function should never have more than 5 arguments: Sadly due to poor planning we were forced to have a function with 9 arguments. Four of these have default values but calling the entire function feels like a chore. No one should do that to another programmer.

4. Error reporting is key: We did a pretty good job of error reporting and it has been helping tremendously to the user.

5. Don't drag your feet on testing. I am not a big fan of plugging in numbers to my code and hoping that it works. Testing can sometimes feel degrading and serve as a stark reminder of your tiny stupid mistakes. Testing an entire set of functions in one night though is worse. Test as you go and you won't have to bother with it later.

All in all the project went well. We did a lot more than I thought we had to but it was enjoyable to do. A good exersize for any aspiring student of programming. Who knows? You might fall in love with databses.