Good Developer vs Bad Developer

[wysota]

If any of you do commercial software engineering, I would be interested to know the ratio of documentation to source code, time wise.

At the company I cooperate with I'm practically the only one that does some kind of "good-enough" development documentation but nobody ever reads it anyway. I'm afraid this is similar for most small/medium sized software development companies. There is constant pressure on new features and no pressure for improving the skills of developers.

We do generate a lot of business-related documentation though. But it's really worthless for a developer. This sucks as after a while nobody knows how things work and why they were done that way. Of course comments in code are also very sparse.

[Timoteo]

The things that most influence my opinion of someone else in a programming environment are a) ability to research and b) willingness to research.

Nothing turns me off quicker than being asked a question about something that is detailed in documentation. The converse is also true - I love a great question. Even greater is the question that I cannot answer (because I love to research).

Also, being able to abstract a specific solution into something that can be applied to a broader range of problems is a huge plus.

So I suppose what I am touching on here is a fundamental cognitive trait that is part of the distinction between "bad programmer" and "good programmer". Myself, I want to be an "awesome programmer" but I am not there yet (and even "good" is debatable).

[ComaWhite]

I don't mind documenting code, but half the time I just forget to document.

[squidge]

Then you get your hands slapped

Document what your code is supposed to do first, code after, then validate.

[genjix]

A good developer has intimacy with the computer ecosystem. They implicitly feel which tools are needed to fill the void. They have a harmony with their code and fit well into their community, cooperating with others. A good developer is a hacker and cautious planner at the same time, with well rounded senses and experience.

[high_flyer]

A good developer has intimacy with the computer ecosystem. They implicitly feel which tools are needed to fill the void. They have a harmony with their code and fit well into their community, cooperating with others.

Sounds like Zen!

Nothing turns me off quicker than being asked a question about something that is detailed in documentation.

If I had a cent for each such question on this forum...

[franz]

There's a lot you can use for qualifying the quality of a developer and everything has to be seen in perspective. As for the tools and stripping the C preprocessor from a c language: Could you do still be reasonably good at your work without the compiler, the assembler? Some tools are essentials.

A good developer knows what tools make him work more efficiently and will probably work very hard in order to have to work less (the good kind of lazy). Cares about his work and the thriving of his work (and keeps it thriving by whatever means possible. Auto-tests, code reviews, refactoring etc.).

A bad developer doesn't really care. He just codes and hopes it works.

A good developer will never jump into implementation until he has complete design of the application, where as a bad developer will open the IDE first.

I don't think anyone has ever had a complete design of the application. Software is an organic thing. Not something you design, build and never touch again. Sometimes you have to start coding to get a feel for the right solution (prototyping, tracer-bullet programming and other buzz-words).

[tbscope]

Just one more:

A brilliant developer knows how to make QObject subclasses available in scripts as both a return type and as an object.

var myObject = new MyObject;
myObject = someOtherObject.getMyObject();

var myObject = new MyObject;
myObject = someOtherObject.getMyObject();

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Ohh dear, is this difficult :-(

[Timoteo]

I don't think anyone has ever had a complete design of the application. Software is an organic thing. Not something you design, build and never touch again. Sometimes you have to start coding to get a feel for the right solution (prototyping, tracer-bullet programming and other buzz-words).

So true. Infact one could say that only a good developer can react to those changes. In all of non-trivial software you are going to experience feedback from multiple sources, so your design and/or implementation will indeed change. A good programmer understands that no implementation is ever complete. A good programmer is never surprised. (Ok, I lie, but a good programmer is infinitely less prone to being surprised). A good programmer does not hold any given implementation sacred.

That's it for now.

[Timoteo]

Wanted to rant and figured this thread the most appropriate for it.

Does it seem to anyone else that Qt and how easy it appears to be (and indeed it is - you can have a trivial program with a UI up in moments with Creator) is drawing in the same crowd that suddenly appeared on the scene with the advent of Visual Basic? Anyone smell what I'm cooking? I understand that Qt and Creator have the goals of lowering the bar for entry into the design and implementation world, but good lord.

I'm not saying that all Visual Basic programmers are poor either. I've seen some rather impressive things done with it (it can call c and asm libs which totally unleashes the speed the applications are capable of). Hell, my first language was BASIC (which eventually lead me into assembly thanks to PEEK and POKE).

Hmm. Am I trying to say that RAD prior to education on programming is extremely detrimental? Maybe. What do you guys think?

[squidge]

I'd have to agree with you, people are downloading QtCreator and expecting to have an application up and running without first understanding how to program in C++. There seems a lot of "I don't want/don't have time to learn, just give me example code and I'll copy and paste". When it then doesn't work because they changed something major, they just post the outcome of the compiler and say something along the lines of "It doesn't work, fix it for me."

[franz]

Wanted to rant and figured this thread the most appropriate for it.

Does it seem to anyone else that Qt and how easy it appears to be (and indeed it is - you can have a trivial program with a UI up in moments with Creator) is drawing in the same crowd that suddenly appeared on the scene with the advent of Visual Basic? Anyone smell what I'm cooking? I understand that Qt and Creator have the goals of lowering the bar for entry into the design and implementation world, but good lord.

I'm not saying that all Visual Basic programmers are poor either. I've seen some rather impressive things done with it (it can call c and asm libs which totally unleashes the speed the applications are capable of). Hell, my first language was BASIC (which eventually lead me into assembly thanks to PEEK and POKE).

Hmm. Am I trying to say that RAD prior to education on programming is extremely detrimental? Maybe. What do you guys think?

I don't know where the crowds come from. Obviously the general idea is that Qt is easy. Well, it is easy, but it is no walk in the park (it is compared to MFC development though). Anyone not willing to invest the time in learning C++ (or Python or any other language with Qt bindings) will come out disappointed. Shame really.

[ComaWhite]

I don't know where the crowds come from. Obviously the general idea is that Qt is easy. Well, it is easy, but it is no walk in the park (it is compared to MFC development though). Anyone not willing to invest the time in learning C++ (or Python or any other language with Qt bindings) will come out disappointed. Shame really.

I see that all too well especially on Qt on freenode. It's so common it ain't even funny.