Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages

Chapter 3. The PL/SQL Development Spiral

How many times have you written a program, gotten it to compile first time around, and found that it had no bugs? Let me rephrase that question: have you ever written a program of more than, say, five lines that compiled and executed without bugs the first time around? Please send me your resume if the answer is yes. We need developers like you. I will make a confession: I have never once been able to get it right the first time. Perhaps I am just too impatient to walk through my code properly. I certainly haven't found the patience to discover the joys of computer-assisted software engineering. I am just a hacker at heart.

Even with lots of patience and prior analysis, however, I believe that it is wrong to set as a realizable objective to "get it right the first time." Software development should be seen largely as an iterative process. You get closer and closer to "perfection" as you take multiple passes at a solution. I like to think of this process as a spiral towards excellence in code. A spiral is different from a cycle, which is the term often used to portray the, well, "lifecycle" of development. A cycle or circle has you coming back around to where you were before. A spiral implies that when you come back around, you are at a higher place than you were on the previous spin. You are closer to the ideal.

There are many ways to apply this philosophical thinking to PL/SQL development. The single most important non-technical (i.e., ...