The coding process

During my winter break, which is very quickly coming to a close, I have done a lot of coding- stuff I have never done before. Each time I have pretty much followed the same process and have found the same thing.

It starts off with me thinking about or writing down what I want to accomplish with the program at hand. Recently, I wrote a mailing list. So with the mailing list I wanted to accomplish these things:

• Allow people to sign up via a form
• Generate a confirmation number once they join, add them to a database and send them an e-mail to confirm their subscription.
• Once they confirm, edit the database to reflect that. If they were added by mistake, delete them from the database.
• Once they confirm, send them one more e-mail stating they have been confirmed.

Once I get to the coding, I write functions, connection codes, queries, etc. to accomplish said goals. Then there is the debugging phase. I usually call it the What? why the hell isn’t this working??? phase. Usually after staring at it and doing a few things I know won’t work, the solution comes to me in a flash of brilliance.

And once you are all debugged, you’re done, right? Well, not quite. Now is the time to look over ever thing, since you code is working, and see if there is anything you over looked. With this particular project, there were 2 major things I over looked:

• A major security risk when unsubscribing
• A check to make sure the person signing up did not already sign up

After writing that code, it’s debug time again, and then another check. It’s usually good also, to get a couple of friends who know what they are doing to check it for you too, so they can throw some ideas at you, and maybe check something you may have over looked. Just like writing a paper, your friends might see something you didn’t because they didn’t write it. Later.