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Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

johndcook.com

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Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#41

Post by ska »

msandford wrote: post #7

This is incredibly true. I once turned 60kLoC of classic ASP in VBScript into about 20kLoC of python/django including templates. And added a bunch of features that would have been impossible on the old code-base. It turned the job from hellish (features were impossible to add) to very nearly boring (there wasn't much to do anymore). So with this newfound freedom I built some machines to automate the data entry and on…

> Sadly there's (seemingly) no way to interview people for this ability

I think there is. Show the candidate some bad code. Not WTF code, but something you wouldn't be proud of but is realistic. Bonus points if you're comfortable enough to pull this out of your own production system. Ask the candidate about adding some functionality, but be clear that cleanup and refactoring changes are fine (even encouraged). The conversation should be enlightening.

Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#43

Post by collyw »

stinos wrote: post #11

Not only is it the most important skill (unless for small home projects maybe), it's also the one which takes the longest to learn and hence the one you really improve on during the years and which distinguishes the experienced ones from the lesser experienced ones. Coincidently, it's also the skill for which you won't find a ready-made answer on stackoverflow or any other site/book. thinking of it, I've also seen th…

This is pretty much how I feel just now (after 12 years). I know Django pretty well after 4 years, and know where and how to add things to avoid breaking other parts of the code and make it work consistently with other parts.

Yet nearly every job I apply for these days wants a 90 minute online test. (I just had to implement a sorting algorithm in psuedo code - I have never in 12 years had to implement a sorting algorithm as I choose an appropriate library to do that for me).

Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#44

Post by agounaris »

I would add to the conversation the fact that most projects fail on the set of the initial requirements. In my experience so far I have seen that constantly changing what you want the app to do creates a huge mess in the codebase even if you use latest tool and methodologies.

Looks like there is a great value to organise your app in way to be able to throw away large chunks of code and start over in case there is a big design change.

Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#45

Post by humbleMouse »

I like this little article a lot. Personally, I try to write code in a way that reads like a book. Lots of comments, explicit function names, explicit variable names, object names, class names, ect. Talking about languages higher level than C/assembly here obviously.

I am amazed at all the code I see that has terrible/too generic names for functions and variables and objects. Some people get so obsessed over short function names, one character variable names, and complicated looking one liner evaluations.

Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#47

Post by vonmoltke »

msandford wrote: post #35
odonnellryan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a few similar things at my previous employer. Basically, taken it upon myself to write internal reporting applications, to much success. I've also done some other small things (AHK, etc..) which worked out well. Point is, I've been modestly bringing these up during interviews when asked what I've been doing the past few years. It is always glossed over. I don't think companies want or recognize that they wa…

I was fortunate to be a valued player on a small team. But what you're talking about is basically trying to hire yourself in as a tech exec when you're just applying for a job as a programmer. I think that's because management (generally) doesn't really want to hear that they've got a blind spot even if they do. Ultimately all you can really do is try and work your way into a situation where you have some kind of mea…

> I wish there was a job title for "good all-arounder with knowledge of the state of the art in a role with substantial self-direction", but I think that's probably "founder" or something. Or "owner of a very small business" maybe?

That's the way I am drifting. I just can't seem to get in gear on my own. :(

Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#48

Post by cpursley »

icbat wrote: post #28
msandford wrote: post #7

This is incredibly true. I once turned 60kLoC of classic ASP in VBScript into about 20kLoC of python/django including templates. And added a bunch of features that would have been impossible on the old code-base. It turned the job from hellish (features were impossible to add) to very nearly boring (there wasn't much to do anymore). So with this newfound freedom I built some machines to automate the data entry and on…

> Sadly there's (seemingly) no way to interview people for this ability In a recent interview, I spent 45 minutes pairing with a current employee. Our goal was to take a (contrived) piece of legacy code, clean it up, and add a new feature to it. I imagine it was a very telling experience for them, and I feel it was more useful than the whiteboarding we'd done before. Hopefully we as an industry will keep iterating on…

Yeah, a combo of a scanning a candidates github projects and some doing some pairing on real code is much better than whiteboarding.

Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#49

Post by edw519 »

the number one most important skill is how to keep a tangle of features from collapsing under the weight of its own complexity

Agreed.

very rarely is there some tricky data structure or algorithm that casts a looming shadow over everything else

Agreed, BUT...

In order to organize, sooner or later, you will have to get clever (with tricky data structures or algorithms).

How I have always built something big and/or complex:

  1. Add lines of code. 
  2. Add lines of code.
  3. Add lines of code.
  4. Holy shit! What have I done?
  5. Refactor.
  6. Combine similar sections.
  7. Genericize with parameter-driven modules.
  8. Still too many lines of code! Optimize Step #7 with something clever.
  9. Go to Step 1.
2 years later: What the hell was this clever parameter-driven multi-nested process for? Why didn't I just code it straight up?

For me, organizing complex code has always been a delicate balance between readibility and cleverness.

Don't remove enough lines of code and it's too much to navigate. Remove too many and it's too much to comprehend.

Organization + Cleverness + Balance = Long Term Maintainability

Re: Organizing complexity is the most important skill in software development

#50

Post by FLUX-YOU »

msandford wrote: post #7

This is incredibly true. I once turned 60kLoC of classic ASP in VBScript into about 20kLoC of python/django including templates. And added a bunch of features that would have been impossible on the old code-base. It turned the job from hellish (features were impossible to add) to very nearly boring (there wasn't much to do anymore). So with this newfound freedom I built some machines to automate the data entry and on…

The interview simply doesn't have the time required and both sides will have to be okay with spending more time evaluating each other if we want to move forward.

Also we simply need to teach people the things that we want them to know after we hire them instead of looking for perfect fits.

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