Good programmers write code that humans can understand.” MARTIN FOWLER, Author and Specialist for Software Architecture
Programming is an extremely creative profession
This statement comes from
John Romero,
a pioneer of game programming and the father of
"DOOM".
Here's the full quote:
"You may not think of programmers as artists,
but programming is an extremely creative profession. It's logic-based creativity."
But before I get creative, the basic requirements have to be right.
At the beginning, there is a crystal-clear concept. What should the software do and
what must the user do to get to that goal. In fact, every programmer should define the
user interface before writing a single line of code. Guide your user through the inputs,
provide the necessary feedback, place all the required input elements in the visible area,
and prioritize function over beauty. Putting too much emphasis on modern design and trends
can make you forget important steps that make a product functional.
As Project Manager and Director of the Ravensburger games
"Scotland Yard Interactive"
and "Master Labyrinth"
(both on Phillips CD-I), I had many sleepless nights but I had also delighted days of success
concerning UI design. These apprenticeship years (or nights) give me today the confidence and courage
to argue with graphic designers, art directors and advertising agencies when it comes
to the functionality of a user interface.
Here you get an Idea of the Look and Feel of the Labyrinth Game
This creative quarrel leads to the concept of programming and the first lines of code.
In 1978 I still had to carry each byte with the virtual bucket one by one to the
central unit of the microchip
(assembler code: LDA)
in order to add it to another byte there (assembler code: ADC).
Today I have outstanding development environments and powerful programming languages
at my disposal. This does not make anything better, it just makes it different.
I speak fluently the foreign languages PHP, JAVASCRIPT, VB.NET, C# and PYTHON.
But even lots of experience don't save a programmer from the ultimate nightmare of all coders:
debugging. No, bugs are not nice little animals (a bug is NOT a beetle),
they are rather nasty fellows hiding beyond recognition in the dark depths of your program code.
An early and painful example of what a
MISSING HYPHEN in program code can do was NASA's
Mariner 1 Venus probe. In 1962, this spacecraft barely made it out of Cape Canaveral
when a software bug caused the rocket to veer dangerously off course and threaten
to crash back to Earth. Alarmed, NASA engineers on the ground gave the self-destruct order.
The cost of the missing hyphen summed up to $18 million Dollars.
Programming is a matter of trust. I make sure that all the hyphens for your program
are in the right place and that users can operate it without any problems...
Apps for PC
For Novartis Pharma I have developed a CD/DVD Engine which plays Powerpoint slides synchronously to a video. The application has been continuously developed and used for over 50 CD-ROM/DVD projects. Also for Novartis I developed the touch screen kiosk system "From Bench to Bedside". The system was used with 8 units for several months on the Novartis campus. For Innocel Lörrach and the company Lauffenmühle I programmed similar kiosk systems.
Apps for smartphones and tablets
App programming for tablets and smartphones is, let's put it nicely: tricky.
Due to the different hardware, different operating systems and the often missing
information from the manufacturers.
I have programmed several iPad apps for Novartis Pharma, which were distributed internally.
HERE
you can view the web version of an iPad app I created for my client Digitalwerk Basel.