Timeline for How do quick & dirty programmers know they got it right?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 20, 2014 at 23:14 | comment | added | InformedA | My personal experience is that I have a buffer before I actually commit code/work that will have serious consequences. Back at school the way I deal with homework assignment is that sometimes I solved it in a quick and dirty way early. The solution sinks into my long term memory. After a while, ideas about some errors or corner cases occur to me as the solution and question have moved into more permanent place in the brain. It's like an Eureka moment in some way. Then near the due date, I write down the final version and submit commit the final work. It has been working pretty well for me. | |
| Nov 20, 2014 at 23:02 | history | edited | Hossein A | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 60 characters in body
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| Dec 14, 2011 at 19:46 | comment | added | Chris S | Often "simply don't understand all of the potential failure modes" can be replaced with "don't care". The point of caring (for me atleast) is that it saves you stress, headaches and overtime later on | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 17:04 | comment | added | jessecurry | I'd consider myself somewhat of a "Cowboy Coder", but I go out of my way to write readable, maintainable code. I don't think you can lump all "Cowboys" into one bucket. | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 13:55 | comment | added | otto | Immeasureable amounts of perfect code has gone to waste because it wasn't just quite perfect enough when the window of opportunity was open. | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 11:37 | comment | added | user4951 | Well, I do write jerk codes. Then When I open a project, the project will require another file. I add that file and that file require another file, then I add that file and that file requires another file. Then, I ended up with so many files the program doesn't need. I ended up having to correct really really old codes that are no longer used on files I do not need. Why? Because I don't bother structure dependency. Well, subject for another question. | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 11:34 | comment | added | Péter Török | @JimThio, do you seriously think that any of the programmers referred to above have ever intentionally written bad code? Have you ever read code written by yourself a few years back? Did you find it good? Chances are, you did your best back then, and you still see an awful lot of things to be improved in that code now. | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 8:06 | comment | added | kevin cline | @tp1: Good programmers can write code that is easy to read. They do this by having someone else read it, and clarifying anything that is unclear. With practice, the portion that is unclear on first reading will shrink. | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 7:20 | comment | added | jwenting | and others will interpret that as a sign of you being a bad coder... Or will simply dismiss your bracing or naming style as being a sign of you being a bad coder. I've seen both happen. | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 2:04 | comment | added | asthasr | I don't think my own code is perfect. I just take precautions to try to catch my imperfections. | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 1:08 | comment | added | tp1 | The actual problem is classifying other programmers into cowboy or quick&dirty or other titles. Every programmer has some failure modes, and reading someone elses code is very difficult, and finding your own failures is very difficult. All these together means that people too easily label other programmers as bad ones, while thinking their own code is perfect | |
| Dec 14, 2011 at 0:39 | comment | added | corsiKa | Quoth the raven, nevermore: "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." A modern view if this would be "not tested it". Now the difference between the above and the programmers in the OP is that they didn't even take the time to prove it correct. But this alludes to the notion that even if you prove something correct, it doesn't prove that your code matches what you think you proved. | |
| Dec 13, 2011 at 22:14 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Caleb | ||
| Dec 13, 2011 at 21:46 | comment | added | Paolo | I would say that the company is not understanding the risk it is taking preferring (probably cheaper) cowboy coders to true professionals. | |
| Dec 13, 2011 at 19:39 | comment | added | Mark Booth | Many of us have been in that rather unfortunate position. It's pretty dis-spiriting being bequeathed other peoples' technical debt. | |
| Dec 13, 2011 at 19:03 | comment | added | fluffy | @JohnFx: Psychological warfare. I love it. | |
| Dec 13, 2011 at 17:59 | comment | added | JohnFx | Whenever I hear the "clean it up later" or "we will do that when things slow down a little" I'm always tempted to start singing "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I'll love ya tomorrow. It's always a dayyy awaayyyyy." That could be just me, though. | |
| Dec 13, 2011 at 15:35 | history | answered | asthasr | CC BY-SA 3.0 |