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  3. Am I a bad programmer?

Am I a bad programmer?

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  • C Chris Losinger

    15 years since i graduated college and i've never worked at any company where the source and/or DB were documented beyond a few lonely one-liners next to bug fixes. function headers ? hah!

    declassified wrote:

    Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books

    most developers i've worked with didn't go to school for programming and i don't know anyone in real life who reads programming books (other than for reference).

    image processing toolkits | batch image processing

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    DavidNohejl
    wrote on last edited by
    #12

    Chris Losinger wrote:

    15 years since i graduated college and i've never worked at any company where the source and/or DB were documented beyond a few lonely one-liners next to bug fixes. function headers ? hah!

    Is that why you have your own?


    [My Blog]
    "Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
    "Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe

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    • D DavidNohejl

      Chris Losinger wrote:

      15 years since i graduated college and i've never worked at any company where the source and/or DB were documented beyond a few lonely one-liners next to bug fixes. function headers ? hah!

      Is that why you have your own?


      [My Blog]
      "Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
      "Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe

      C Offline
      C Offline
      Chris Losinger
      wrote on last edited by
      #13

      i have my own because once upon a time i had too much energy for only one programming job to consume

      image processing toolkits | batch image processing

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      • M Member 96

        Your not necessarily a bad programmer, but if you have to work with a steaming pile of shit every day it pays to get to know it as well as everyone else rather than to try to convince them all that they are the bad programmers.


        "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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        Fred_Smith
        wrote on last edited by
        #14

        John Cardinal wrote:

        Your not necessarily a bad programmer

        A-hem... (cough)... but your Englsih.... :-)

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        • F Fred_Smith

          John Cardinal wrote:

          Your not necessarily a bad programmer

          A-hem... (cough)... but your Englsih.... :-)

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          Member 96
          wrote on last edited by
          #15

          I know, I know, it's my Achilles heel. In a world where "nite" is increasingly a valid spelling, I don't see why we can't just combine your and you're and call it even. ;)


          "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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          • D declassified

            So, the company I work for is pretty small, only about 8 developers. The biggest (web) app is very complicated and is chalk full of errors. To compound the issue, there is absolutly ZERO documentation in the code / database. The DB also has no Foriegn Key contraints and is only marginally normalized. I don't work on the app that much, so I'm not as familiar as everyone else is with it. Whenever a problem comes up, they can jump right to the problem, but it sometimes takes me hours.... The question is "Am I a bad programmer, or are they?" Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books, but no one here does that (except me).:mad: As far as new development goes, IMHO I think I am *better* because I grasp the concepts of normalization, documentation, OOD. All new concepts to them. I had to explain normalization and pursuede them to let me do it on some new tables I added!:mad: And this is no hole-in-the-wall company either, they have some BIG clients. Well, thanks for letting me beef!

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            Marc Clifton
            wrote on last edited by
            #16

            No, you're not a bad programmer. In fact, you sound like a very good programmer. But I think you're an idiot to work with these bozos! ;P (please take that with the humor it was intended to be, off color as it may sound) Marc

            Thyme In The Country
            Interacx
            My Blog

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            • M Member 96

              I know, I know, it's my Achilles heel. In a world where "nite" is increasingly a valid spelling, I don't see why we can't just combine your and you're and call it even. ;)


              "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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              Fred_Smith
              wrote on last edited by
              #17

              John Cardinal wrote:

              Achilles heel

              :-) strictly speaking, of course, there should be an apostrophe in there: Achilles' heel :-)

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              • M Member 96

                I know, I know, it's my Achilles heel. In a world where "nite" is increasingly a valid spelling, I don't see why we can't just combine your and you're and call it even. ;)


                "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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                C Offline
                Colin Angus Mackay
                wrote on last edited by
                #18

                John Cardinal wrote:

                In a world where "nite" is increasingly a valid spelling

                Obviously not the same world I inhabit.


                Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: db4o: An Embeddable Database Engine for Object-Oriented Environments, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services ... My website

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                • F Fred_Smith

                  John Cardinal wrote:

                  Achilles heel

                  :-) strictly speaking, of course, there should be an apostrophe in there: Achilles' heel :-)

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                  M Offline
                  Member 96
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #19

                  I wasn't referring to Achilles' heel, I was referring to the commonly known concept of a singular weakness. ;P


                  "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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                  • C Colin Angus Mackay

                    John Cardinal wrote:

                    In a world where "nite" is increasingly a valid spelling

                    Obviously not the same world I inhabit.


                    Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: db4o: An Embeddable Database Engine for Object-Oriented Environments, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services ... My website

                    M Offline
                    M Offline
                    Member 96
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #20

                    Living with the U.S. as our next door neighbour puts certain strains and pressures on the English language.


                    "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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                    • D declassified

                      So, the company I work for is pretty small, only about 8 developers. The biggest (web) app is very complicated and is chalk full of errors. To compound the issue, there is absolutly ZERO documentation in the code / database. The DB also has no Foriegn Key contraints and is only marginally normalized. I don't work on the app that much, so I'm not as familiar as everyone else is with it. Whenever a problem comes up, they can jump right to the problem, but it sometimes takes me hours.... The question is "Am I a bad programmer, or are they?" Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books, but no one here does that (except me).:mad: As far as new development goes, IMHO I think I am *better* because I grasp the concepts of normalization, documentation, OOD. All new concepts to them. I had to explain normalization and pursuede them to let me do it on some new tables I added!:mad: And this is no hole-in-the-wall company either, they have some BIG clients. Well, thanks for letting me beef!

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                      Pete OHanlon
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #21

                      Bad programmer? No. Surrounded by dross? Yes.

                      Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.

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                      • M Member 96

                        I wasn't referring to Achilles' heel, I was referring to the commonly known concept of a singular weakness. ;P


                        "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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                        Fred_Smith
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #22

                        Even so, I thought the apostrophe remained - but am prepared to stand corrected if you know better...

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                        • M Member 96

                          Living with the U.S. as our next door neighbour puts certain strains and pressures on the English language.


                          "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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                          D Offline
                          DavidNohejl
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #23

                          Rite! :-D


                          [My Blog]
                          "Visual studio desperately needs some performance improvements. It is sometimes almost as slow as eclipse." - Rüdiger Klaehn
                          "Real men use mspaint for writing code and notepad for designing graphics." - Anna-Jayne Metcalfe

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • M Member 96

                            Living with the U.S. as our next door neighbour puts certain strains and pressures on the English language.


                            "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

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                            El Corazon
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #24

                            hey, just because we can't have a news program above 7th grade level because it would confuse the general population... I am as bad as the next guy, they hire someone to fix my writing. :) They really do!

                            _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)

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                            • C Chris Losinger

                              15 years since i graduated college and i've never worked at any company where the source and/or DB were documented beyond a few lonely one-liners next to bug fixes. function headers ? hah!

                              declassified wrote:

                              Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books

                              most developers i've worked with didn't go to school for programming and i don't know anyone in real life who reads programming books (other than for reference).

                              image processing toolkits | batch image processing

                              D Offline
                              D Offline
                              Dan Neely
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #25

                              I'd wag 25-40% of the lines in my source files are comments. It might've been higher at one point but I cleaned out crap comments from the previous developer at the same time I wrote good ones. Whoever wrote this was almost as bad as the OPs coworkers: //increment the counter i++; There were some good comments scattered about but the original was done based on quantity rather than quality of comments.

                              -- If you view money as inherently evil, I view it as my duty to assist in making you more virtuous.

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                              • D Dan Neely

                                I'd wag 25-40% of the lines in my source files are comments. It might've been higher at one point but I cleaned out crap comments from the previous developer at the same time I wrote good ones. Whoever wrote this was almost as bad as the OPs coworkers: //increment the counter i++; There were some good comments scattered about but the original was done based on quantity rather than quality of comments.

                                -- If you view money as inherently evil, I view it as my duty to assist in making you more virtuous.

                                B Offline
                                B Offline
                                Big Daddy Farang
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #26

                                dan neely wrote:

                                cleaned out crap comments from the previous developer

                                I do a lot of that also. My belief is that it's better to write no comment than a bad comment. //increment the counter i++; That person should be taken out and shot. ;) BDF

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                                • D declassified

                                  So, the company I work for is pretty small, only about 8 developers. The biggest (web) app is very complicated and is chalk full of errors. To compound the issue, there is absolutly ZERO documentation in the code / database. The DB also has no Foriegn Key contraints and is only marginally normalized. I don't work on the app that much, so I'm not as familiar as everyone else is with it. Whenever a problem comes up, they can jump right to the problem, but it sometimes takes me hours.... The question is "Am I a bad programmer, or are they?" Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books, but no one here does that (except me).:mad: As far as new development goes, IMHO I think I am *better* because I grasp the concepts of normalization, documentation, OOD. All new concepts to them. I had to explain normalization and pursuede them to let me do it on some new tables I added!:mad: And this is no hole-in-the-wall company either, they have some BIG clients. Well, thanks for letting me beef!

                                  B Offline
                                  B Offline
                                  Big Daddy Farang
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #27

                                  I think not, simply because you bothered to ask. Bad programmers just pollute their way along oblivious to the stench of their product. Or so I imagine, I've never had to work with one. Just clean up after them.

                                  declassified wrote:

                                  Well, thanks for letting me beef!

                                  That's why we're here, I guess. BDF

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • D declassified

                                    So, the company I work for is pretty small, only about 8 developers. The biggest (web) app is very complicated and is chalk full of errors. To compound the issue, there is absolutly ZERO documentation in the code / database. The DB also has no Foriegn Key contraints and is only marginally normalized. I don't work on the app that much, so I'm not as familiar as everyone else is with it. Whenever a problem comes up, they can jump right to the problem, but it sometimes takes me hours.... The question is "Am I a bad programmer, or are they?" Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books, but no one here does that (except me).:mad: As far as new development goes, IMHO I think I am *better* because I grasp the concepts of normalization, documentation, OOD. All new concepts to them. I had to explain normalization and pursuede them to let me do it on some new tables I added!:mad: And this is no hole-in-the-wall company either, they have some BIG clients. Well, thanks for letting me beef!

                                    S Offline
                                    S Offline
                                    Stan Shannon
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #28

                                    Aside from myself, I've never met a good programmer. And I'm pretty sure they would all say the same thing.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • D declassified

                                      So, the company I work for is pretty small, only about 8 developers. The biggest (web) app is very complicated and is chalk full of errors. To compound the issue, there is absolutly ZERO documentation in the code / database. The DB also has no Foriegn Key contraints and is only marginally normalized. I don't work on the app that much, so I'm not as familiar as everyone else is with it. Whenever a problem comes up, they can jump right to the problem, but it sometimes takes me hours.... The question is "Am I a bad programmer, or are they?" Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books, but no one here does that (except me).:mad: As far as new development goes, IMHO I think I am *better* because I grasp the concepts of normalization, documentation, OOD. All new concepts to them. I had to explain normalization and pursuede them to let me do it on some new tables I added!:mad: And this is no hole-in-the-wall company either, they have some BIG clients. Well, thanks for letting me beef!

                                      M Offline
                                      M Offline
                                      Manuel F Hernandez
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #29

                                      It is the mark of a professional to recognize that he/she is a bad programer. This is when you learn to... * document your code. So others can understand the logic that could only come out of your head. * use error handling. You want to provide a graceful and informative exit when your code crashes. * ask for peer review, code walkthroughs and structured testing You want others to catch mistakes you will inevitably make before they get to production. * ask for an implementation process. Beacause implementation suprises suck big time. This includes getting the proper signoffs, resources allocated, and backout plans. * instrument you application. You you know the testers are bad testers and won't catch everything. You want real world problems to be visible before they cause serious damage.

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                                      • M Member 96

                                        I know, I know, it's my Achilles heel. In a world where "nite" is increasingly a valid spelling, I don't see why we can't just combine your and you're and call it even. ;)


                                        "I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon

                                        P Offline
                                        P Offline
                                        pseudonym67
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #30

                                        "Nite" is a bad spelling for what? Only joking ( sort of ) I'm so English I had to stop and think what you were talking about.

                                        pseudonym67 My Articles[^] Beginning KDevelop Programming[^]

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                                        • D declassified

                                          So, the company I work for is pretty small, only about 8 developers. The biggest (web) app is very complicated and is chalk full of errors. To compound the issue, there is absolutly ZERO documentation in the code / database. The DB also has no Foriegn Key contraints and is only marginally normalized. I don't work on the app that much, so I'm not as familiar as everyone else is with it. Whenever a problem comes up, they can jump right to the problem, but it sometimes takes me hours.... The question is "Am I a bad programmer, or are they?" Most of us were drilled with the "document your code" as we were learning either by instructors or books, but no one here does that (except me).:mad: As far as new development goes, IMHO I think I am *better* because I grasp the concepts of normalization, documentation, OOD. All new concepts to them. I had to explain normalization and pursuede them to let me do it on some new tables I added!:mad: And this is no hole-in-the-wall company either, they have some BIG clients. Well, thanks for letting me beef!

                                          P Offline
                                          P Offline
                                          peakwu
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #31

                                          Try finding a new company where you can be identified with.

                                          YOU ARE NEVER TOO LATE TO ENJOY EVERYTHING.

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