Petr's Programming Tips and Motivational Statements

• debugging is part of the game
• clarity of the programming goal
• visualize what variables look like
• imagine what the result should look like; then display it.
• good coding practice makes debugging easier
• comment your code
• immediately open/close for loops and if-then statements (and comment)
• naming conventions, e.g. all caps for constants
• avoid hard-coding of any constant
• constant definitions at top of m-file
• code with generalization in mind
• use descriptive variable names
• recycle code & learn by example
• in Matlab use help, in Unix use man or apropos
• think of sub-directories as intermediate stages of a data analysis process: they are places to store intermediate results.
• it is good to keep within-subject analyses in a directory tree organized by subject.
• it is good to keep group analyses organized by the type of analysis performed.