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Signs that you are a bad programmer

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Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#51

Post by pestaa »

FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #40
veb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must admit I'm bad at this. However, in my defense it comes down to: bad management. I'm forever being told to work on the next MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER only to be told after a few days that I need to work ON THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT THING and that the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER that I was working on is no longer important at all. le sigh

"Hey, FuzzyDulop, we're a day before deadline but I've been thinking, we could do SUPER BRILLIANT IDEA THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING and it'd be amazing! What do you think?" ... "You can forget about your deadline if you want that in, boss." * skip forward a week * "Hey, FuzzyDunlop, we're a day before deadline but..."

Ha! Old memories. We usually skipped forward 3 months and changed everything again.

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#52

Post by philwelch »

spenrose wrote: post #32
rickmb wrote: post #3

The opposite approach is much simpler. There's only one sign that you are a great programmer: Clients and fellow programmers are still happy with your work two years after you've delivered it. (Of course: "still" implies that they we're happy at delivery, which includes actually shipping working software in a timely fashion.)

"Clients and fellow programmers are still happy with your work two years after you've delivered it." Disagree. The first system I wrote kept the client happy for years. It was a mess, but it was literally millions of dollars better than not having any system. If what you mean is something like "focus on doing work of long-term value, and consider programming skill as such an input", then I'd agree with that.

"and fellow programmers"

Did your client ever hire programmers to maintain and improve the first system you wrote? Were those programmers happy with your work?

I guess if no one is ever going to maintain your code it doesn't matter as much. I wouldn't ever be so bold as to predict ahead of time whether that's going to be the case.

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#53

Post by crag »

FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #40
veb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must admit I'm bad at this. However, in my defense it comes down to: bad management. I'm forever being told to work on the next MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER only to be told after a few days that I need to work ON THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT THING and that the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER that I was working on is no longer important at all. le sigh

"Hey, FuzzyDulop, we're a day before deadline but I've been thinking, we could do SUPER BRILLIANT IDEA THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING and it'd be amazing! What do you think?" ... "You can forget about your deadline if you want that in, boss." * skip forward a week * "Hey, FuzzyDunlop, we're a day before deadline but..."

And then getting chewed out for missing the original deadline. Usually from the boss who just drop the SUPER BRILLIANT IDEA THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING in your lab.

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#54

Post by jedberg »

william42 wrote: post #24
jedberg wrote: post #10

My first thought was, "wow, infogami is still up?" I guess I left it in a good state. :)

Looking at the homepage, it says that the most popular pages were converted into static form, and now they're trying to sell the domain.

Yeah, we did that a long time ago. I'm just surprised it is still running! I don't think I even told the other reddit guys about infogami or where it runs or anything.

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#55

Post by philwelch »

mcantor wrote: post #39

I wish articles like this would namespace their assertions by telling us what they mean by "good" or "bad", so we could avoid the perennial echo chamber debate that goes like this: A: GOOD MEANS SHIPPING AND PLEASING YOUR CUSTOMERS B: NO YOU FOOL! GOOD MEANS WRITING CLEAR CODE THAT OTHER HACKERS CAN READ C: NO YOU FOOLS! GOOD IS A HAPPY MEDIUM BETWEEN BOTH OF THOSE THINGS D: DEBATE IS HARD, LET'S GO SHOPPING! God for…

"Good" already has a meaning, you can't arbitrarily redefine it. You have to actually figure out what the most "good" tradeoff is between shipping and writing maintainable code.

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#56

Post by buckwild »

I'll admit, when I was a C programmer, I was victim to "Dysfunctional sense of causality."

I remember taking a C class in my undergrad, nailing the code to perfection, and getting an F because I had written the code in under different architecture and compiled with a different compiler (not specified in the prompt by any means). It ran well on my computer (and I proved it), but since it wouldn't run on my professors computer or TAs computer, I still received an F.

So yes, I still maintain strong malice towards C :-)

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#57

Post by ChuckMcM »

mcantor wrote: post #39

I wish articles like this would namespace their assertions by telling us what they mean by "good" or "bad", so we could avoid the perennial echo chamber debate that goes like this: A: GOOD MEANS SHIPPING AND PLEASING YOUR CUSTOMERS B: NO YOU FOOL! GOOD MEANS WRITING CLEAR CODE THAT OTHER HACKERS CAN READ C: NO YOU FOOLS! GOOD IS A HAPPY MEDIUM BETWEEN BOTH OF THOSE THINGS D: DEBATE IS HARD, LET'S GO SHOPPING! God for…

Except this is sort of a cop out isn't it? In the sense that for any type of artist there are good artists and bad artists but while the good artists may be highly differentiated bad artists share a common set of deficiencies.

The article is almost in the 'you might be a if ' style (most common instantiation I am familar with is 'you might be a redneck if ' And in the spirit of that humor I liked it.

That being said, if you ask me as a hiring manager what I consider 'good' programming, its 'readable/understandable', it does what it is supposed to do, and it has tests.

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#58

Post by [deleted] »

rickmb wrote: post #3

The opposite approach is much simpler. There's only one sign that you are a great programmer: Clients and fellow programmers are still happy with your work two years after you've delivered it. (Of course: "still" implies that they we're happy at delivery, which includes actually shipping working software in a timely fashion.)

[deleted]

Re: Signs that you are a bad programmer

#60

Post by FuzzyDunlop »

crag wrote: post #53
FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hey, FuzzyDulop, we're a day before deadline but I've been thinking, we could do SUPER BRILLIANT IDEA THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING and it'd be amazing! What do you think?" ... "You can forget about your deadline if you want that in, boss." * skip forward a week * "Hey, FuzzyDunlop, we're a day before deadline but..."

And then getting chewed out for missing the original deadline. Usually from the boss who just drop the SUPER BRILLIANT IDEA THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING in your lab.

We get the sort of unsure, passive aggressive criticism, full of ifs and maybes. The sort that actually makes you feel worse because the boss appears to be personally disappointed.

Get chewed out proper and at least you know it's just because jobs have to be done.

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