Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

What if the guy who takes 5X to do the work has less bugs and more efficient code and secure code? just because you code faster doesn't mean your code is better, in fact it is probably worse, because you didn't take your time.

I'm merely saying that the speed you produce code is not directly related to it's quality. Release early and often does have it's merits. But that doesn't mean whip code out in an hour, and then fix bug after bug after bug.

Re: Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

#4

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 31, 2008, 3:37 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

#5

Post by jfalk » Mon, Mar 31, 2008, 3:52 PM UTC

Here is an article I like a lot that shows just how bad a bad programmer can be. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000781.html

Basically to sum it up, the author mentions a very simple question that he asks potential programming candidates to solve. This kind of question is the kind of question you can solve by making it through two/three chapters in any programming book, yet the number of people, even senior level developers, that can't get it is astonishing.

Re: Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

#6

Post by pchristensen » Mon, Mar 31, 2008, 4:14 PM UTC

xenoterracide wrote: post #3

What if the guy who takes 5X to do the work has less bugs and more efficient code and secure code? just because you code faster doesn't mean your code is better, in fact it is probably worse, because you didn't take your time. I'm merely saying that the speed you produce code is not directly related to it's quality. Release early and often does have it's merits. But that doesn't mean whip code out in an hour, and the…

That's the point (even inferable from the title) - he'd take a good programmer who was slow (like you describe) over the bad programmer, who is slow, and writes bugs, and takes a long time to fix those bugs, and makes more work for other people. Fast good programmer > slow good programmer > fast bad programmer > slow good programmer.

Re: Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

#7

Post by fendale » Mon, Mar 31, 2008, 9:06 PM UTC

jfalk wrote: post #5

Here is an article I like a lot that shows just how bad a bad programmer can be. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000781.html Basically to sum it up, the author mentions a very simple question that he asks potential programming candidates to solve. This kind of question is the kind of question you can solve by making it through two/three chapters in any programming book, yet the number of people, even senior…

I remember that article - I quickly reassured my self by writing fizz-buzz in Perl, Ruby and PLSQL (my three most used languages) - no great achievement, but I am better than the majority of comp-sci grads apparently!

Re: Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

#8

Post by henning » Mon, Mar 31, 2008, 9:08 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #2

Joel Spolsky has a real nice treatment of this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html My favorite line from that: "Five Antonio Salieris won't produce Mozart's Requiem. Ever. Not if they work for 100 years." Nice analogy to programming.

Yes, it takes a real genius to work on bug tracking and project management.

Re: Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

#9

Post by mrtron » Mon, Mar 31, 2008, 9:18 PM UTC

henning wrote: post #8

edw519 wrote: post #2

Joel Spolsky has a real nice treatment of this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html My favorite line from that: "Five Antonio Salieris won't produce Mozart's Requiem. Ever. Not if they work for 100 years." Nice analogy to programming.

Yes, it takes a real genius to work on bug tracking and project management.

Accidentally hit the up arrow instead of the down, so I will respond.

His bug tracking/pm software is actually quite good. He doesn't actually write software anymore from what I understand. And attacking him personally doesn't change the validity of his point.

Re: Bad Programmers Are Not Good Programmers Who Are Slow

#10

Post by edw519 » Mon, Mar 31, 2008, 9:24 PM UTC

henning wrote: post #8

edw519 wrote: post #2

Joel Spolsky has a real nice treatment of this: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html My favorite line from that: "Five Antonio Salieris won't produce Mozart's Requiem. Ever. Not if they work for 100 years." Nice analogy to programming.

Yes, it takes a real genius to work on bug tracking and project management.

This is EXACTLY what pg was talking about in "How to Disagree".

http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Your response is DH1, attacking the writer, not the message. Too bad.

I don't know Joel and I don't know how good is software or business is. I DO KNOW that this essay is a real saver. It's what I hand clients who question my rates. It shuts them up every time.