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up vote 24 down vote favorite
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I'm working on my own application and I'm stuck. I have to implement a feature but I can't find a good approach to implement this feature. I was thinking about it for a couple of days, and no good thoughts came. Searching the Internet didn't give me any inspiration.

I need to move on, but I want to know, what's the best:

  • Think more, wait more, and keep on searching for the best approach
  • Stop wasting time and start with poor design, covering everything with tests

What do you think? As I said before, I'm working on my own application. I don't have any deadlines, but I also want to finish coding the app asap.

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possible duplicate of Prototyping vs. Clean Code at the early stages. See also: Develop fast and buggy, then correct errors or be slow, careful for each line of code? –  gnat Dec 11 at 8:35
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@gnat: These other questions deal with situations where the askers already know how to implement some features cleanly, but may want to sacrifice a good design for beeing "quick and dirty". This question, however, describes a different situation, it is about problem solving in general when you don't find a good point to start at all, so it is IMHO no duplicate. –  Doc Brown Dec 11 at 8:57
 
note: if the app is a success you'll never "finish coding it" and features will get redesigned anyway. So I would go with implementing it the best way I can now. –  ren 2 days ago
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4 Answers

up vote 26 down vote accepted

Apart from talking to people about it (question suggests you don't have colleages on the project), I often find it a good approach to focus on the things I can do.

Usually there is some part of the code that I know I must write anyhow. The stuff I don't know how to write yet, is then replaced by stubs that either return dummy results, or use an approximation that is good enough to test the rest.

This keeps you productive. And by the time you need to implement the missing piece, you have the interface. And you have written a lot of code surrounding the problem, in the same problem domain, which usually helps me to generate ideas: you know more exactly what you are required to output, and what other inputs are available if it helps to solve the problem. Also, often the conclusion is that the missing piece does not neet to be as all-encompassing as initially thought.

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The downside of writing the riskiest, least understood code last is that you may find out that it is not possible to solve the problem, or only possible to solve it with substantial changes to the program's architecture, leading to a lot of wasted effort. –  Rich Smith Dec 11 at 16:15
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The other downside of this approach is sometimes leads you to, "I can solve problem X. All that's left is to do Y." when in reality, Y isn't feasible and the real solution is Z. –  Brian Dec 11 at 17:10
 
@RichSmith, Brian: It happens, although rarely if you ask me. It then can provide you to a better understanding of why the missing part is so hard, which improves your estimates. And I would not suggest to put in weeks of work based on a speculative and arbitrary division of responsibilities. –  jdv 2 days ago
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up vote 10 down vote

If searching fails, you could always implement using the first (not necessarily the best) idea you got, and then refactor it later when you find the right approach.

This is the right approach, since even if you find something that looks like a good idea, it may turn out to be bad later on. Or it may be good at that time, but later you find something much better. Then you'll still have to refactor.

When doing this, make sure to design and implement in such way that it is easy to refactor. If you do it properly, you'll have to change only the problematic part, and not start from start.

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It seems to be assumed in this post, but I'd like to add that it is very important that you write your code in a fashion that it is easy to re-factor. –  c_maker Dec 11 at 15:10
 
@c_maker Yes, of course. Otherwise, it makes no sense to rewrite everything later from scratch. I'll add it to the answer. thanks –  BЈовић 2 days ago
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up vote 7 down vote

What about asking another person? For example, you could describe your problem here, or, if it is more an implementation issue, on stackoverflow.com, and ask for ideas. Sometimes it will already help you if you start writing down the problem, even if you don't get good answers.

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If it's the User Interface that's a problem, there's also ux.stackexchange.com –  pink-diamond-square Dec 11 at 14:48
 
if you ask on SO then answers are going to be copyrighted under Creative Commons, and depending on the project, that code could be unusable. –  smcg Dec 11 at 15:29
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Advice can be copyrighted? Surely author would use it as a tutorial, not copy/paste? –  GrizzLy 2 days ago
 
@smcg: the topic was discussed here: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/12527/… - But honestly, if that's really becoming an issue, I think one can circumvent this by the way GrizzLy suggested. –  Doc Brown 2 days ago
 
@DocBrown IANAL so I cannot say for sure if that would hold up, but sometimes it's good to err on the side of caution. –  smcg 2 days ago
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up vote 1 down vote

I always try and look at it from an end user perspective. Its very easy to think of a "cool" idea as a developer that you can spend ages working on that actually adds very little to your app.

Ideally you want to map out all the features in your app and prioritize them according to the benefit to the end user, personally I use MOSCoW, although as long as you keep your method of prioritization the same throughout it can be as simple as a 1 - 5.

After which if you still find that this feature is an essential part of your app then as people have already said, ask! I don't think i've ever encountered a problem that eventually hasn't been solved either by a colleague or those nice people over on Stackoverflow.

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Cool, because I'm from Moscow :) –  user21974 Dec 11 at 16:31
 
There you go its a sign! –  Mrk Fldig 2 days ago
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