Comments on: Becoming a Better Programmer

By: Kris

Kris — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:25:23 +0000

Nice little article, I'll be sure to have a read of that book, thanks!

PS: I love the way the comments work :O

By: javaid

javaid — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 10:52:37 +0000

Everyone needs a hug.

By: rith

rith — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:23:09 +0000

Everyone needs a hug.

By: Ryan Campbell

Ryan Campbell — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 17:27:00 +0000

Insanum I don’t agree with that. I had to do everything on your list for three years, and while it was a fun challenge I don’t think it gave me the intangibles of a great programmer. I see those things as skills, just as I see learning a for loop as a skill. I’d like to believe there is something more – some greater ability to motivate, inspire, approach and organize a project beautifully that comes with experience and defines a great programmer.

Michael I definately see your point of view, and agree with it. I prefer to take it to a slightly larger scale, but not the entire project.

It’s also funny that most of the articles I linked to contradict each other in one way or another. It is just nice to see professional opinions, so you can try something new and see if it works for you.

By saying ‘do it right’ I basically meant ‘Fix It, Don’t Hack It ’ from the Flipcode article and ‘Being lazy the smart way’ of this article.

By: Michael O'Brien

Michael O'Brien — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:12:00 +0000

Aghh! The link worked fine in preview, check out this to hear Dave Thomas talk about XP:

http://www.theserverside.com/talks/video.tss?id=DaveThomas&format=http

By: Michael O'Brien

Michael O'Brien — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:11:00 +0000

I completely agree that The Pragmatic Programmer (and the similar Code Complete) are essentials for anyone starting out programming, but I’m not sure your description of XP is entirely accurate.

XP isn’t about just sitting down and coding, it’s really about splitting a piece of work into a number of smaller chunks, each of which you write as best as you can. Instead of trying to figure out the entire system all at once (which seems to be what you prefer), you start with the most basic functionality, write a test, code it, and go from there.

It’s not that you don’t think before you code—you absolutely do—but just that you do so on a smaller scale. For me anyway, this makes it easier to focus on what’s really required rather than how you presume the system should work. It also cuts down the amount of code you write since every line of code is “the simplest thing that could possibly work” and essential for the system to work.

It’s also worth pointing out that one of the writers of The Pragmatic Programmer, Dave Thomas, is an XP-advocate himself! See here for details!

By: beza1e1

beza1e1 — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 19:10:00 +0000

I’d add the Joel Test.

By: insanum

insanum — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 01:51:00 +0000

If you want to be a good programmer you need to learn what is going underneath that high level language your using. Understand memory allocation, pointers, stack usage, task switching, etc. And to take it to the next level read a book on Assembly Language and Compilers. That will take you to the next level.

It’s sad how many interviews I have given to CS graduates from well known accredited four year universities who only know Java and/or C#. When I ask them to write a simple strcpy() function is fail miserably.

If you can’t write and explain in detail a strcpy() function in C, I won’t hire you.

By: Ryan Campbell

Ryan Campbell — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:05:00 +0000

After reading around different community sites, it seems the wording of my post is misleading. I was not trying to send the message that your project will be done right the first time. I am basically saying write your code with some pride and some logic planning.

For example, lets say you have a piece of code that ideally belongs in a class, but it would still funtion properly if not inside of a class. I now find it easier for me to take the extra 15 or so minutes planning out a flexible class instead of “just making it work” the first time around.

I also added “core code” to the post because features change, but some are staying no matter what, and those are the ones I plan around.

Above all, I don’t call myself a “great” programmer, which is why I provided the links to people who probably have more experience than me.

By: Blob

Blob — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 23:35:00 +0000

To anyone who says “I get it right the first time” is NOT a real programmer. Sure, if you work for a large corporation that allocates 200 hours for you to do a project which will take 1 hour AND they give you 3 months notice, then yes, perhaps it is possible. But in smaller groups where often there isn’t a deadline, but rather an oh-by-the-way, this isn’t always possible. And then there is the business model itself which can be in a state of constant flux. No programmer can program for that. The best you can do is to try and make it flexible enough to handle pretty much anything, but there comes a point when you end up making things way too complicated.