4 ms·

Maybe these developers that produce "negative work" think your code sucks. Ever consider that?

by crispytx 10y ago

flukus 10y ago
That's possible, but if the code is sitting there for years without bugs then it is doing positive work.
jerf 10y ago
What's your point exactly?
- Ace17 10y ago
  I think cripytx might be suggesting that the negativity of one's work might be subjective. In software development, this idea has proven to be a very dangerous one. And it's false. Take a perfectly well-written module, it's always possible to transform it into objective crap. Just for fun, here are some recipes for C++: - add to the module a dependency on a framework (e.g to use QString instead of string just because the dev is more familiar with QString) - replace implicit memory management with explicit one (e.g just because the dev doesn't like unique_ptr) - reformat some parts of the source files one's own coding style (e.g because the official one isn't good anyway) - inline every function that's only called once (e.g why the need to factorize if it's only needed once?) - up-front convert functions into function templates (e.g one day someone might need the generic version!) - "optimize" the code (unroll loops, inline calls) without profiling it (e.g this part can't be profiled anyway because it doesn't take enough time) Let's take one module (module A), apply these recipes, you get module B. At first, A and B both have the exact same number of features, and the exact same number of bugs. However, as time passes, the stability of both will quickly diverge, the cost of new features will also quickly diverge. It doesn't require more work to directly create module A, because it's actually about not doing some things ; however, it certainly requires more knowledge. Developers directly creating module B are implicitely relying on the ability of their team to transform it into module A. And _this_ will require work. This is negative work, i.e work that should have been done but hasn't (also known as "technical debt").
- ulkram 10y ago
  He's just pointing out that no developer thinks they're doing negative work. Everyone is a "top" developer
throwanem 10y ago
Maybe they're not competent to recognize good code when they read it. Or maybe you're responding to something OP didn't write. It's hard to tell. Perhaps you'll elaborate.
twblalock 10y ago
> Maybe these developers that produce "negative work" think your code sucks. Ever consider that? So what? Is that a justification for producing bad code?

Maybe these developers that produce "negative work" think your code sucks. Ever consider that?

flukus 10y ago

That's possible, but if the code is sitting there for years without bugs then it is doing positive work.

jerf 10y ago

What's your point exactly?

Ace17 10y ago
I think cripytx might be suggesting that the negativity of one's work might be subjective. In software development, this idea has proven to be a very dangerous one. And it's false. Take a perfectly well-written module, it's always possible to transform it into objective crap. Just for fun, here are some recipes for C++: - add to the module a dependency on a framework (e.g to use QString instead of string just because the dev is more familiar with QString) - replace implicit memory management with explicit one (e.g just because the dev doesn't like unique_ptr) - reformat some parts of the source files one's own coding style (e.g because the official one isn't good anyway) - inline every function that's only called once (e.g why the need to factorize if it's only needed once?) - up-front convert functions into function templates (e.g one day someone might need the generic version!) - "optimize" the code (unroll loops, inline calls) without profiling it (e.g this part can't be profiled anyway because it doesn't take enough time) Let's take one module (module A), apply these recipes, you get module B. At first, A and B both have the exact same number of features, and the exact same number of bugs. However, as time passes, the stability of both will quickly diverge, the cost of new features will also quickly diverge. It doesn't require more work to directly create module A, because it's actually about not doing some things ; however, it certainly requires more knowledge. Developers directly creating module B are implicitely relying on the ability of their team to transform it into module A. And _this_ will require work. This is negative work, i.e work that should have been done but hasn't (also known as "technical debt").
ulkram 10y ago
He's just pointing out that no developer thinks they're doing negative work. Everyone is a "top" developer

throwanem 10y ago

Maybe they're not competent to recognize good code when they read it. Or maybe you're responding to something OP didn't write. It's hard to tell. Perhaps you'll elaborate.

twblalock 10y ago

> Maybe these developers that produce "negative work" think your code sucks. Ever consider that? So what? Is that a justification for producing bad code?