With regards to the idea that just the current function should be on screen: At one point I saw a reference to a study (though of course I cannot now dig up the link!) that suggested an inverse correlation between the amount of code visible on screen and the number of bugs written by programmers, with the conclusion that programmers should buy big screens, use slightly smaller fonts, and avoid using too much whitespace. It is exactly when you are thinking only about the few lines of code you're writing, and not about the context in which those lines are going to run, that you're most likely to introduce a bug.
In an ideal project, of course, your code be so beautiful--so loosely coupled, so free of side effects--that you could in fact focus on a function in perfect isolation. But few of us are lucky enough to live in such a world.
In an ideal project, of course, your code be so beautiful--so loosely coupled, so free of side effects--that you could in fact focus on a function in perfect isolation. But few of us are lucky enough to live in such a world.