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What does it take to be a good programmer?

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Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#31

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

BirAdam wrote: post #8
revskill wrote: post #2

I teach programming, too. My way of teaching is not much about computer, it's more about thinking, drawing and writing (not only code). - Thinking about steps, divide and conquer. - Drawing or visualizing the steps. - Writing documentation clearly before any code is written. Most of new programmers tend to think just make program work means DONE. No, it's not, it's just the last part of what to be done.

The single most useful thing I ever learned was how to break down a problem, make steps to a solution, make a flowchart of said steps, and annotate the flowchart with pseudo-code. After that, making the software was trivial. Even with that toolset I’m likely mediocre at best.

Yeah, to me, that's all programming is. Taking a task, breaking it down into tiny steps, and writing those steps down in a language a compiler/interpreter can understand.

The problem is trying to break down MASSIVE problems. Back when I was frequently dealing with newbie programmers, it was common to find ones that wanted to make an MMORPG while they could barely grok for-loops. They hadn't even completely understood what programming is, yet wanted to take on making a massive project that usually takes multiple teams.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#32

Post by 29athrowaway »

The traits that are favored in one type of programming are not favored in other types of programming.

If you do systems programming on scientific, medical, defense systems you will be risk averse and conservative, and take your time and perhaps be successful. But those same traits will not be favored in let's say, web development for a seed stage startup.

Understanding things from the ground up can be good for some occupations, in others, everything that matters is finishing mediocre CRUD logic as fast as possible, and taking your time to think will be seen as bad.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#33

Post by nine_zeros »

vbezhenar wrote: post #19

IMO good programmer writes code that: 1. Solves task. 2. Does that within a necessary performance constraints. 3. Uses commonly accepted approaches, libraries, style, does not reinvent things which are not necessary to reinvent. 4. Readable by programmers who'll work with that code in the future. That could be juniors or seniors, that depends on a particular company and project. 5. Extendable for changes which are li…

> 4. Readable by programmers who'll work with that code in the future. That could be juniors or seniors, that depends on a particular company and project.

Underrated. Layers of unnecessary abstractions or clever solutions (e.g. complex types in python when simple would do) is a mark of a junior engineer.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#34

Post by AnimalMuppet »

vbezhenar wrote: post #19

IMO good programmer writes code that: 1. Solves task. 2. Does that within a necessary performance constraints. 3. Uses commonly accepted approaches, libraries, style, does not reinvent things which are not necessary to reinvent. 4. Readable by programmers who'll work with that code in the future. That could be juniors or seniors, that depends on a particular company and project. 5. Extendable for changes which are li…

"Rewrite all the things in X" is how you get 1 year of experience 10 times, instead of 10 years of experience. It's also how your company burns through tons of money for little substantial result.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#35

Post by yodsanklai »

Is it the same thing a being a good software engineer?

I've got relatively limited experience working a software engineer but to my disappointment, it seems more than 70% of my job isn't programming. Most of the work is discussing priorities, making tradeoffs, interacting with colleagues and management, writing design documents, giving feedback, writing doc, maintaining, benchmarking, and debugging services, learning proprietary tools and systems, reading documentation, figure out how these legacy systems work, interview candidates, mentor interns.

Programming is in the weekend and after working hours.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#36

Post by contravariant »

vbezhenar wrote: post #19

IMO good programmer writes code that: 1. Solves task. 2. Does that within a necessary performance constraints. 3. Uses commonly accepted approaches, libraries, style, does not reinvent things which are not necessary to reinvent. 4. Readable by programmers who'll work with that code in the future. That could be juniors or seniors, that depends on a particular company and project. 5. Extendable for changes which are li…

While those are all good guidelines (though I'm not too sure about 6) a 'master' programmer should probably know when to break each of those rules.

In the end programming is about telling a computer what it ought to do. Making this process as easy as possible is the sign of a good programmer, but there's no reason the process has to be limited to writing code, so talking about what code makes a good programmer seems reductive.

Also in this view 6 is usually a mistake as it makes it harder to communicate, not easier. That said some things don't make sense, and therefore probably shouldn't look like they make sense either.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#38

Post by eternityforest »

A good programmer:

* Knows enough about what's actually going on under the hood to predict and avoid the relevant issues(SSD wear, odd cases where disk latency makes major slowdown, etc)

* Understands the relevant details of the domain, like algorithms and math if they do that kind of work, or common hardware issues if they do embedded, etc.

* Understands at least the basic level of application level stuff and what users expect.

* Does not do anything clever unless absolutely necessary, does not make themselves irreplaceable, finds ways to get rid of anything that is slightly interesting, writes code anyone can work on

* Avoids bikeshedding and going down rabbit holes. Doesn't spend 6 hours holding up the whole project because they want to mess with something "Really cool".

* Uses stuff people already know and is compatible with stuff people have. Doesn't reinvent bluetooth and MQTT and .csv files if they don't have to.

* Is comfortable using trusted libraries without fully understanding them, nobody fully understands every part of a large project, and code that already exists is likely code you don't have to maintain.

* Is comfortable letting frameworks make decisions for them, doesn't try to fight the tools they use by imposing a vision of how things should be on them. Don't download Ubuntu and then complain that it's too hard to swap the init system, that's not what it was built for.

* Doesn't secretly despise software, find ways to sabotage features, and wish we would all follow the guidance of Industrial Society and its Future.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#39

Post by Joel_Mckay »

xwowsersx wrote: post #28
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #23

Communication skills, team participation, and 10000+ hours of practice with real-world problems. You wish that were true... ;) People often choose careers for the wrong reasons, compete to be at the bottom, and end up miserable. If you are over 30, the burn-and-churn cycle you thought would be exciting... turns out to be really destabilizing and lame. Consider being a plumber, you will make more money, and not have a…

You sound bitter and resentful. Also, student loan debt is not a requirement for becoming a programmer. I have student loan debt, but that's because I decided to go to law school before switching to software development :)

>You sound bitter and resentful

Nope, I like what I do, and talking with the engineers I work with everyday. However, you are about to climb a mountain I've already ascended before, and can't understand my perspective yet.

You will start fantasizing about being a plumber soon... it is the logical choice after all.

Re: What does it take to be a good programmer?

#40

Post by goethes_kind »

I just want to say, I'm really glad that we are talking about "programmers". I hate that stupid term, "software engineer". What a ridiculous title. As if programmers do not also engineer software. And then what are "software architects" for if you already have "software engineers"?

Sorry for the off topic rant.

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