Originally Posted by
Ed Jobe
That's just a matter of how detailed you need to be for your purposes. If you need to communicate to us when asking for help, you may need to be more explicit so that we understand. But what I said earlier was a general statement. Think of programming as a recipe. Eventually, you need to write down every step in code, like a recipe. If you are really familiar with a process, you might be able to sit down and just start writing code. But if the process is unfamiliar to you, or you are open to the possibility of redesigning it, then its best to document the basics of what you want to accomplish. So when I say 'do it manually', I mean from the user's point of view, what does the user need to accomplish and how would he do it. Then, you figure out how to to that programatically, looking for ways to cut out unnessary steps or steps you can do without user intervention. In the case commands performed by other apps, it may be necessary (or you might be better off, what happens if they go out of business) to replicate what they do, rather than rely on them.