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Who wrote this shit?

heltweg.org

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Re: Who wrote this shit?

#151

Post by dragonwriter »

toxik wrote: post #149
mcv wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to a lawyer, and it just wasn't worth going after them for this amount. I wrote it off as a valuable lesson and went to make more money elsewhere.

You don’t need a lawyer for small claims court as far as I know, just an FYI.

Unless you are a citizen of the same state the corporation is, you’ll need a lawyer when they file a removal petition to have the case moved to federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction.

And if you don't consult a lawyer to prepare for small claims court, you stand a decent chance to be blindsided by that or something else.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#152

Post by chris_wot »

pbalau wrote: post #84
rozenmd wrote: post #4

My favourite is when you're a solopreneur working in your own repos and still asking yourself "who wrote this shit?!"

After about 20 years of doing this (not particularly as a solopreneur), I understood the following: I sucked really bad yesterday compared to today and today I'm sucking so much more than I will tomorrow. And it makes me really happy that I can still say this. The moment I won't be able to say this anymore, is the moment I'm done and I can finally die.

Well, the fun thing is that at the moment you expire you can be sure that you sucked the least in your life but some young and inexperienced coder will still look at your code and ask “Who wrote that shit?” :-)

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#153

Post by treespace88 »

lbriner wrote: post #114

It is kind of mentioned in the article but I think a lot of developers don't realise that there isn't just good code and bad code, there is a whole spectrum and the position on this spectrum is dictated by skill, experience, time pressure, money pressure and shifting requirements (assuming you ever had any!). We pine for the perfect green field where all things are good but there are probably zero companies where all…

Thank you.

Developers like you are few and far between. I find it painful when others devs constantly re write working code, instead of moving forward. It’s so easy to trash what is there. Very few have the maturity to work with existing code without complaint.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#154

Post by lamontcg »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #102
sbarre wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard a saying once: "all developers should be embarrassed about code they wrote more than a year ago" as a (cheeky) measure of ongoing growth and development. :-)

The code you wrote a year ago should have good points and bad. If it is just bad, then you either started programming a year ago, or should perhaps start thinking about changing jobs. If you are actually improving then there should be some good in there (you got better from two years ago right?). If you can't identify that good, then either you are just chasing fashion (that perfectly good construct from two years ag…

Or you were just constrained so you stopped well short of perfect.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#155

Post by chris_wot »

dragonwriter wrote: post #151
toxik wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need a lawyer for small claims court as far as I know, just an FYI.

Unless you are a citizen of the same state the corporation is, you’ll need a lawyer when they file a removal petition to have the case moved to federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. And if you don't consult a lawyer to prepare for small claims court, you stand a decent chance to be blindsided by that or something else.

Do it anyway. For them to hire a lawyer to determine this, then they have to pay quite a bit of money. It is quite possible they might be bluffed and pay up, or decide it is cheaper to pay up, and then actually pay up.

If the initial action costs nothing, you have nothing to lose, but they will almost certainly lose something. If you do nothing it will cost you nothing also, but you have no chance of gaining anything at all.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#156

Post by physicles »

I had a nearly identical experience a few months after starting my first job out of college. Huge software firm. I was looking through code with a senior colleague, and something looked really off to me. I literally said something like, "How could the person who wrote this be so stupid?" My colleague replied calmly,, "I wouldn't presume to know the mental capacity or state of the person who wrote this code at the moment they wrote it."

What he said humbled me and I basically never said anything like that ever again.

I also had the opposite experience. Two years in, wrote some code for a library that I thought was pretty clever. One day I got pulled into an online chat with a couple principal devs -- phenomenal engineers, respected the hell out of them -- and one was asking the other about this piece of code. He said something like, "Who wrote this shit? It's so complicated, I can't figure it out."

So from that moment I understood that you have to be careful not to be too clever when you write code. Changed my life.

To this day I'm so grateful to have had such amazing, patient mentors early in my career.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#157

Post by berkes »

bumby wrote: post #91
berkes wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a strong believer in continuous refactoring. Improve existing code when you touch it. Defer architectural choices untill the moment you have enough info. And leave cleaning up to the moment that it starts becoming messy, not before. That implies, code never is perfect. Not even good. But clunky, cobbled together, expermental or just plain stupid. But always just about 'good enough' to solve the issue at hand.

> But always just about 'good enough' to solve the issue at hand. I think this is context dependent. I generally agree with this statement on relatively low-risk projects. The problem with "good enough" is that it often becomes a rationale for our cognitive biases to take the easier route. I don't want someone doing that on, say, safety-critical code. Maintaining high standards is a way of buffering against those cog…

> context dependent

Isn't that by definition what good enough means? That on safety critical code "good enough" is a very different level than on a throwaway-script?

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#158

Post by notreallyserio »

sbarre wrote: post #19
rozenmd wrote: post #4

My favourite is when you're a solopreneur working in your own repos and still asking yourself "who wrote this shit?!"

I heard a saying once: "all developers should be embarrassed about code they wrote more than a year ago" as a (cheeky) measure of ongoing growth and development. :-)

Jokes on me, I'm embarrassed about the code I'll be writing today!

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#159

Post by trixie_ »

hutzlibu wrote: post #148
trixie_ wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the programmers working with the code, it definitely should be, but please let me know if you think there is a better place for explanations of code functionality other than the code itself. People like you are the reason why code becomes unmaintainable. You think some document separate from the code is a substitute for comments? It is not, your code is not as good as you think it is. If you have an example on gi…

All I did, was saying comments shouldn't be default for documentation. To which you reply with this. "People like you are the reason why code becomes unmaintainable." So ... what do you think, I could say of people like you and something with the internet? In any case, I use comments in code btw. But way less often nowdays. Because comments have a tendency to be ignored and still remain there, despite the code for th…

I say 'people like you' because this isn't the first time I've heard arguments like, 'comments have a tendency to be ignored and still remain there' and 'No comment is way better, than a wrong, missleading comment'.

Those two statements combined is your justification (excuse) for never writing comments and why the code you and people like you write is unmaintainable.

Just write the damn comment. You're code isn't as good as you think it is. And no one can read your mind as to your intent when you set upon writing the code.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#160

Post by kingcharles »

matwood wrote: post #137
bikingbismuth wrote: post #44

In my first corporate job out of college (a NOC at an ISP) I was asked to update the documentation for troubleshooting quality of service issues. I checked our wiki for what was already there and it horrendous. I started to mentally thrash the person and was going to go confront them about it. When I checked the edit history I was greeted by a single edit and my username a week after I started the job. I learned a gr…

Always check git blame before winging out insults. Then, only blame people no longer at the company ;)

This is standard development policy at every corporation I've worked at.
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