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How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

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Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#21
This is such a bizarre post. If you have the self-awareness to admit this about yourself, you are probably not a poor programmer.

Poor programmers do things like allowing an incoming request to spin up unlimited concurrent threads. Poor programmers erroneously throw exceptions on any operational deviation - even it if can be handled without error.

Most importantly - poor programmers do not learn from their mistakes and are unable to see that they are poor programmers.

Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#22

I’ve been in a rut lately. Missing obvious things, shipping less than my best code. It’s come to my attention that I’m not as good at programming as I am at crafting database queries and tuning them but that’s such a small niche given how easy it is to pick up SQL that I’m having an existential crisis. So I’m working on getting better and getting more confident.

>I’m having an existential crisis

Don't. There are so many poorly performing queries and databases in the world that you could make a very tidy income just specializing in sorting that out. Even if you knew nothing else that skill will keep you employable for decades to come.

Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#23
> Finally, let the computer do the work; Dave Kirk talks about the elegance of brute force (I don't know if it original with him). This is a cousin of KISS. Hardware is fast. Software is hard.

Yeah, I don’t know. The cloud bill is going to be expensive.

Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#24

I’ve been in a rut lately. Missing obvious things, shipping less than my best code. It’s come to my attention that I’m not as good at programming as I am at crafting database queries and tuning them but that’s such a small niche given how easy it is to pick up SQL that I’m having an existential crisis. So I’m working on getting better and getting more confident.

You could make a career out of just SQL. I know my company could use a decent SQL programmer. We’ve got hundreds and hundreds of procs written by SQL amateurs

That’d be a lot of fun. I find so much joy in that actually. Figuring out what variation of a query satisfies the query planner to create the most performant plans is fun!

Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#25
post #21

This is such a bizarre post. If you have the self-awareness to admit this about yourself, you are probably not a poor programmer. Poor programmers do things like allowing an incoming request to spin up unlimited concurrent threads. Poor programmers erroneously throw exceptions on any operational deviation - even it if can be handled without error. Most importantly - poor programmers do not learn from their mistakes a…

> Poor programmers do things like allowing an incoming request to spin up unlimited concurrent threads. Poor programmers erroneously throw exceptions on any operational deviation - even it if can be handled without error.

All of these examples make sense in the context of your business, but in some environments these might be best practice ;)

Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#27
post #21

This is such a bizarre post. If you have the self-awareness to admit this about yourself, you are probably not a poor programmer. Poor programmers do things like allowing an incoming request to spin up unlimited concurrent threads. Poor programmers erroneously throw exceptions on any operational deviation - even it if can be handled without error. Most importantly - poor programmers do not learn from their mistakes a…

Why should being aware of how lacking you are as a programmer have much bearing on whether you're good or not?

When I started programming seriously I had a mentor who gave me a long list of my shortcomings. It's taken years of hard, dedicated work to rectify most of those problems and I still have a huge distance to cover to be as good as I want to be.

Being a good programmer is a skillet acquired with hard, concentrated effort over time; not just a good attitude with some self-awareness.

Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#28

> Finally, let the computer do the work; Dave Kirk talks about the elegance of brute force (I don't know if it original with him). This is a cousin of KISS. Hardware is fast. Software is hard. Yeah, I don’t know. The cloud bill is going to be expensive.

It is also terrible advice in regards to Energy consumption

Re: How to Succeed as a Poor Programmer

#29

ALAN. Avoid Learning Anything New Terrible advice and mindset, It's good to learn for pleasure or curiosity. This way, you can enjoy reading SICP, effective java, code complete... Or you can use a new system, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS. Doing it you model your thoughts and mind, learn new ways, practices, or patterns, you don’t have to use then only for having learned, but even so, they will be useful to you.

I spend at least two hours a day on personal projects, for the pleasure and the challenge. They just have nothing to do with programming or software engineering, i.e. my job.
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