Does Not Work

Cuts both ways tho. There are developers (some good, most not) who are notorious about not testing their code. "I don't know dude, it doesn't seem to work -- did you test it?" is fair game in these cases, especially once a pattern has been established. As in, why don't you look into it and figure out why it doesn't work instead of asking me to do it for you? As in, letme-not-googlethatforyou. Of course, depending on severity, action should be taken right away to address this bad habit.

Re: "no hello", I'm not fully with it. Some developers enjoy a more human-like interaction which doesn't play into the unfriendly programmer/BOFH stereotype. Lack of testing will cost the company a lot more time and have more damaging effects than people saying hi to each other (which could be argued to be worth the little extra time it takes to play out):

  1. Dev commits untested code
  2. QA has to catch it
  3. QA has to fill bug report
  4. Dev not known for testing has to read bug report
  5. Dev not known for testing has to fix bug
  6. Dev not known for testing has to test reported bug
  7. Dev not known for testing has to commit fix
  8. QA has to look at again, and either approve/close or send back to step 3.
     - versus -
  1. Dev commits tested code
  2. QA tests change
  3. QA approves change

One pet peeve is people who ask "can I ask you a question?" - this doesn't have the same positive benefit as "hey, how's it going? how was your wknd?", it doesn't seem to serve any purpose. I typically ask people, nicely, to just ask the question directly next time and I'll answer when I'm able, if can't right away. Especially in a chat-type environment in a geographically/timezone-diverse team.

Here the discussion between two programmers is being compared to a car being taken to a workshop (mostly to a person whom u dont interact with on a daily basis)

When a programmer says to another programmer it "does not work", there is usually some history between these programmers where they have some level of understanding between them. This article kinda ignores that aspect.

I had never heard someone complain that it "does not work" when there is a compilation error. That is just what a non-programmer or a beginner would say who is trying to get attention for help. This example doesnt fit with the point the article is trying to make.

When someone says it "does not work", it is usually followed by a long pause, where the programmer is still wondering why it is not working. The other programmer usually gets that and they patiently wait to hear the details or ask questions because they had been there themselves.

It all boils down to what level the two programmers had worked together before and having an idea of when someone would use such a phrase without giving any explanation. Usually the other programmer already has a context of what might not be working).

If your scenario does not fit with my explanations, all I can say is that, the other people is stuck and needs some input or someone to challenge his thinking to debug it better. If someone says that, all you have to do is reply back saying "what do you mean?" and you will get flooded with information.

Article summary by AI bot: http://hntop.org

Claiming something “does not work” isn’t what one programmer says to another programmer. The phrase “does not work” should be reserved for when you’re taking your car to the mechanic and you don’t have a clue what’s wrong with it. If you’re telling a programmer that a particular piece of source code simply “does not work”, then you should no longer consider yourself a programmer. This code does not work because… …it does not compile. When programmers come to me and simply say “this code does not work,” I send them away.

That is how it works for our team. Normally if someone skips that step it's more urgent and I temd to answer (they have already asked and distracted me so why not). I don't really mind pleasantries, they remind me I am working with humans.

> One pet peeve is people who ask "can I ask you a question?"

Back when I was TA'ing a course in college, about half of the students on average in office hours would start their conversations with me by saying "I just have one small question." I'm not sure what was worse, when they didn't just have one question (or it wasn't small) or when the question was so small they could have gotten an answer by the time they finished assuring me that they weren't going to take up much of my time.