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Skills Poor Programmers Lack

justinmeiners.github.io

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Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#161

Post by vorg »

apo wrote: post #73

The skills cited in the article are: 1. Understanding how the language works. Additionally understanding how the language infrastructure interfaces with the computer. 2. Anticipating problems. Prefer solid foundations over veneers that appear to get the job done. 3. Organizing and designing systems. Essentially, SOLID. Two things on this: First, bad code often results from conflicting goals. Moving goalposts and on t…

> the most valuable skill a programmer can have isn't technical, but rather social: empathy

You should say "a programmer needs social skill as well as technical skills to be valuable". If a programmer doesn't have a basic aptitude for programming-like tasks, they won't be able to understand how the language works, anticipate technical problems, or organize and design systems. Until you've worked in a group that's filled with "programmers" who don't have the aptitude for coding, you won't really understand this. The social skill must complement the technical aptitude and skills, but is not more important than them. In fact, I'm even suspicious of people who say "the most valuable skill a programmer can have isn't technical, but rather social" because they often turn out to be aptitudinally-challenged programmers themselves.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#162

Post by CodeWriter23 »

userbinator wrote: post #106
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t speak for the parent, but my take on it is a skilled programmer would define structs or classes, for example: parent, student, address While the unskilled would: parentfirstname, parentlastname, parentaddress1, .... studentpostcode

Yes, I'd call that "grouping related data (and functions, if you're using OOP) together"; no need to obfuscate the matter by saying "thinking in types". Incidentally, that's another thing about the difference between actually-skilled programmers and "pretenders": the former will always explain something in very simple terms, while the latter will try to use as much abstract and vague technical-sounding terms as possi…

> (via @ararwhatever) The most lacking skill that I tend to see is an inability to think in types, and to design software accordingly.

> (via @userbinator) Yes, I'd call that "grouping related data (and functions, if you're using OOP) together"; no need to obfuscate the matter by saying "thinking in types".

There's some nuance between what you two are saying. IMO the "related" vector (depending on the definition) is a potential driver of what I refer to as the "Single Class Application". Back to the OP example, the Shipment and Notification are related to an Order. The simple "related" question says it's ok to implement all of those in one class instead of three.

The real questions to ask are about the specific relationship of possession. Does this attribute BELONG to this object or another? Does this object DO this action? These go a little beyond the typical OOP mantra of abstraction and encapsulation.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#163

Post by techslave »

cjfd wrote: post #77

In all fields there is a minority who are not very good at what they do. I think, though, that in programming that minority might actually be a majority. The thing is, if you are a poor plumber who causes floods in peoples houses you are not going to be in business for a very long time. In programming there seems no such discipline because it actually takes somebody good at programming to perceive the difference betw…

> it actually takes somebody good at programming to perceive the difference between good and bad programming.

sorry that’s not true. there are plenty of products (let’s limit ourselves to digital products) where consumers can differentiate between good and bad programming. they may not realize it’s the programming that’s the problem, but they can tell the difference.

for products where the user can’t tell the difference, does the difference matter? good enough is literally good enough.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#164

Post by kingludite »

munchbunny wrote: post #19
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.

I've seen it in professional work. If it's actually a single variable conditional, that's irritating but by itself not worth more than a comment in the PR. However, in practice it's rarely this cut and dry. I usually see conditions expanded like this for clarity reasons. For example, I consider this kosher if it's in some business logic... instead of writing: > return a && !(b || c) || d; I've seen (pardon the format…

> return d || a && !(b || c);

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#165

Post by techslave »

apo wrote: post #73

The skills cited in the article are: 1. Understanding how the language works. Additionally understanding how the language infrastructure interfaces with the computer. 2. Anticipating problems. Prefer solid foundations over veneers that appear to get the job done. 3. Organizing and designing systems. Essentially, SOLID. Two things on this: First, bad code often results from conflicting goals. Moving goalposts and on t…

> Second, the most valuable skill a programmer can have isn't technical, but rater social: empathy.

couldn’t agree more!

but the term you’re really looking for is perhaps a strongly developed theory of mind. whereas empathy really is referring to emotional awareness.

the worst and also most annoying programmers i know, to a person, consistently fail to see other points of view. their way is the right way, period. they tend to actually be smart, and right about very many things in a small problem domain. i dare say their raw intelligence is a double edged sword.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#166

Post by techslave »

rjpc wrote: post #138
apo wrote: post #73

The skills cited in the article are: 1. Understanding how the language works. Additionally understanding how the language infrastructure interfaces with the computer. 2. Anticipating problems. Prefer solid foundations over veneers that appear to get the job done. 3. Organizing and designing systems. Essentially, SOLID. Two things on this: First, bad code often results from conflicting goals. Moving goalposts and on t…

Yeah, context and empathy are two things that I'm only appreciating more and more as my career goes on. I once had this small but terribly written module written by an inexperienced developer who wasn't given the kind of feedback and code review that he should have been given. It was still running in production years after that person had left because it was in a corner of the code base that was basically never touch…

bookmarked.

i don’t suppose you could publicly share the module? this is a stellar interview question.

or maybe there’s a library of such code? (yes yes, jquery/openssl or your favorite true but not useful reference comes to mind)

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#167

Post by bassman9000 »

apo wrote: post #73

The skills cited in the article are: 1. Understanding how the language works. Additionally understanding how the language infrastructure interfaces with the computer. 2. Anticipating problems. Prefer solid foundations over veneers that appear to get the job done. 3. Organizing and designing systems. Essentially, SOLID. Two things on this: First, bad code often results from conflicting goals. Moving goalposts and on t…

Second, the most valuable skill a programmer can have isn't technical, but rater social: empathy. The best programmers I've seen have it and the worst completely lack it.

+10

This is missed by 99% of articles and lists. And most programmers never stop to step on someone else's shoes.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#168

Post by ghostpepper »

vorg wrote: post #161
apo wrote: post #73

The skills cited in the article are: 1. Understanding how the language works. Additionally understanding how the language infrastructure interfaces with the computer. 2. Anticipating problems. Prefer solid foundations over veneers that appear to get the job done. 3. Organizing and designing systems. Essentially, SOLID. Two things on this: First, bad code often results from conflicting goals. Moving goalposts and on t…

> the most valuable skill a programmer can have isn't technical, but rather social: empathy You should say "a programmer needs social skill as well as technical skills to be valuable". If a programmer doesn't have a basic aptitude for programming-like tasks, they won't be able to understand how the language works, anticipate technical problems, or organize and design systems. Until you've worked in a group that's fil…

I think the difference is that empathy often correlates with teach-ability, and it's much easier to teach someone technical skills than it is to teach someone empathy.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#169

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #151
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain the consequences of not progressing beyond "Int, String, and For Loop" development? Are you suggesting that these engineers don't understand or apply Design Patterns [0]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns

That would be part of it, but since was talking about inability to think in types I suspect they were taking aim more at things like excessively stringly-typed[0] code. [0] https://devcards.io/stringly-typed

I do a lot of TypeScript these days. It's possible to define a type which equates to one or more literal string values. The TypeScript compiler will complain if you try and supply an invalid string parameter. So --at least for TypeScript-- I think this is less of a concern than in the past (and TypeScript is growing in popularity within the JS community). In a more general sense, I agree with the author that the 2nd code sample offers additional clarity.

Re: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

#170

Post by rjpc »

techslave wrote: post #166
rjpc wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, context and empathy are two things that I'm only appreciating more and more as my career goes on. I once had this small but terribly written module written by an inexperienced developer who wasn't given the kind of feedback and code review that he should have been given. It was still running in production years after that person had left because it was in a corner of the code base that was basically never touch…

bookmarked. i don’t suppose you could publicly share the module? this is a stellar interview question. or maybe there’s a library of such code? (yes yes, jquery/openssl or your favorite true but not useful reference comes to mind)

I don't think I can, sorry. Though I imagine that if you have a code base of any size that more than a couple dozen people have touched, you'll be able to find something similar if you ask around.
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