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Skills Poor Programmers Lack

justinmeiners.github.io

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Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#21

Post by onion2k »

cgriswald wrote: post #4

> You may have seen code which misunderstands how expressions work: > if isDelivered and isNotified: isDone = True else: isDone = false; > Instead of: > isDone = isDelivered and isNotified Are people actually finding code like this in professional work or is this just an example? I'm self-taught and know I've got some gaps, but this example is so fundamental I find it shocking.

In my 20something years of writing software for a living I've seen both. And I find it very hard to care which one someone on my team uses. It's not something fundamental. Both lines work perfectly well. They do the same thing. The second is more concise and 'better', but if the only improvement you can suggest in a code review is something like shortening a line then the code is basically fine.

A difference between good programmer and a bad programmer is that the good one writes working, readable, human understandable code that does the job it's supposed to do. That's it. Someone who writes code that's shorter without being more understandable, or faster, or significantly more efficient, isn't better.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#22

Post by adamparsons »

afarrell wrote: post #17
adamparsons wrote: post #10

Kinda frustrating that an article calling out where programmers fall short was a non-responsive document that was almost unreadable on mobile. Mildly ironic?

Does blocks of text need responsiveness in order to be readable on mobile? What problem are you experiencing?

As in, the page width stays at full desktop width and to make the font a readable size you must zoom in, making reading a scrolling in two directions excercise. So yes, blocks of text should be responsive to screen size.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#23

Post by [deleted] »

afarrell wrote: post #13
povertyworld wrote: post #3

Skills are nouns, but the list was all verbs. Weird.

Skills which someone has put a name to already are nouns. But if you are trying to say something meaningful about the skills required in a rapidly-evolving field, it is going to be hard to find prepackaged nouns and so you are going to need to use verb phrases. —— EDIT: for example, the notion of a language “working” in a mechanical sense has only been around for the past 60 years. If there is a specific noun to refe…

[deleted]

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#24

Post by codycraven »

afarrell wrote: post #17
adamparsons wrote: post #10

Kinda frustrating that an article calling out where programmers fall short was a non-responsive document that was almost unreadable on mobile. Mildly ironic?

Does blocks of text need responsiveness in order to be readable on mobile? What problem are you experiencing?

The text is very, very small on a mobile device (XL devices may be easier). Requiring anyone with a small/normal sized device without near perfect vision to zoom in and swipe left/right to read a single line of text.

For example I'm on a normal sized device and can't read the text at a zoom level that shows an entire line without my glasses (and my vision isn't too bad, I'm legally allowed to drive without my glasses).

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#25

Post by humanrebar »

Most programmers do not follow the Golden Rule, which is to write code you'd like to maintain with minimal training. It's a principle, but there are various skills involved in doing it successfully, including writing, automation, design, seeking quality peer review, and a few other things.

Similarly, writing code that can be deleted is an important skill.

Using "good design" and "knowing your language" are fairly nebulous and somewhat tautological goals out of context. What is good design? Design that works well, I suppose?

Most code is actually fairly easy to change in the future. Just slap another "if (isLeapDay(today)) dailyProfit * 28 / 29" wherever will solve the immediate bug. Is this a good idea? Nope. Why is it a bad idea? Well, it's the S in SOLID, probably, but the real reason is that someone would be surprised and chagrined to discover that design choice the hard way. Hence the Golden Rule.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#26

Post by afarrell »

klenwell wrote: post #14

As an addendum perhaps to the Organize and Design Systems section, I'd propose including mise-en-place as it applies to project maintenance and the development environment. This centers on tooling and documentation, especially the README. I want a README that gets me set up and running as quickly and in as few steps as possible. Recently I needed to test out some stuff one of my teams was working on. It was a somewha…

Mise-en-place is so important.

Inexperienced engineers sometimes find themselves in teams which don’t appreciate it. Because confrontation can be nausea-inducing, they sometimes don’t endure the discomfort to insist on it.

———

When a customer walks into a restaurant, does he ask about the temperature of the fridge the chicken is stored in? Does he ask if the kitchen is clean and organized? No. Thats the chef’s job to insist on. But the customer does care if his food is late or laden with salmonella.

Likewise, its an engineer’s job to care if she has automated tests and well-structured code.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#28

Post by komali2 »

dpeterson wrote: post #12

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

I don't think these accusations are fair. The author has been programming since at least 2009, and is degreed in math. They also wrote the "think in math write in code article" that people here seemed to like quite a bit last week.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#29

Post by zerubeus »

dpeterson wrote: post #12

This article says more to me that the author(s) are inexperienced themselves rather than shed any light on the practice of software development. I'm imagining some recent boot camp graduates attempting to conflate their months of programming experience into something more than that. "Hey old dudes in company I just joined, I found some things I think are basic so I'm going to write an article to indirectly shame you…

Amen, I don't even understand why this got upvoted ....

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#30

Post by ilovepeppapig »

cgriswald wrote: post #4

> You may have seen code which misunderstands how expressions work: > if isDelivered and isNotified: isDone = True else: isDone = false; > Instead of: > isDone = isDelivered and isNotified Are people actually finding code like this in professional work or is this just an example? I'm self-taught and know I've got some gaps, but this example is so fundamental I find it shocking.

The worst production code I've seen (Java) included its own Object interface and a corresponding ObjectImpl (IIRC it was an abstract class).
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