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> I definitely wouldn't assume that someone who spent more time debugging was a "worse" programmer I believe that more time spent debugging, the worse the code
by eric_h 10y ago
> I definitely wouldn't assume that someone who spent more time debugging was a "worse" programmer
I believe that more time spent debugging, the worse the code you're debugging is. Now if you're spending most of your time debugging your own code, then likely you're a novice who hasn't learned the many ways to write quality code that "just works".
If, on the other hand, you inherited a codebase from someone who did not follow the tenet of "develop your code as if the next maintainer is an axe murderer who knows where you live", then spending a great deal of time debugging is understandable and likely unavoidable.
Personally, during the time that I get paid for programming, most of my time is spent writing tests and developing features.
On the side, however, I have a project that I inherited from someone who clearly never intended to have another person look at the code, and most of my time is spent spelunking and debugging (and slowly replacing every last line).
- WillKirkby 10y agoI find myself doing the exact opposite. The time I get paid for is mostly spent fixing bugs in a codebase of variable quality that I've inherited. The hobby projects I get up to are entirely my own code and thus I get to spend the majority of that time implementing new features.
- eric_h 10y agoWell - my "hobby" project is running the league website for a pool hall that was written in PHP ~12 years ago. There are 4 different leagues, each on their own database, all running very similar (but not the same) versions of the code on similar but not the same db schemas. So I'm trying to modernize it by building a separate app that can interoperate with the 4 different schemas and do all the same things that the old app did. It's an interesting exercise in replacing legacy code piece by piece while still using it (all the leagues would not function if the site didn't work, and there's basically 3 weeks out of the year when the leagues aren't playing). Professionally, on the other hand, I work at a startup where I've more or less had my hands in the code from day one.