4 ms·

Thanks for your words. Most of the stuff I've been doing for the last year or so is bug fixing as I have found that I'm better at finding and fixing bugs and e

by jrookie 16y ago

Thanks for your words. Most of the stuff I've been doing for the last year or so is bug fixing as I have found that I'm better at finding and fixing bugs and even adding stuff to code that is already written and I really get excited when I get something working, It just takes a very long time for me to develop something from scratch mostly because I'm never comfortable with my code and I end up re writing everything and thus never getting anywhere.

edw519 16y ago
Thanks for your words. Your welcome. Posts like yours often help other people as well, so thank you too. I'm never comfortable with my code Neither am I. I don't think that feeling ever goes away. Whenever I look at something I wrote last year, I think 2 things: "I can't believe I wrote this," and "I hope no one else ever sees it with my name on it." It just takes a very long time for me to develop something from scratch Then don't write anything from scratch. I have about 2 dozen "base programs". Whenever I need to develop something new, I grab the closest one, "save as" something else and get to work. I'm always tweaking, improving, and adding to those base programs, kinda like automating my own continuous improvement. I'm too busy focusing on my user's dilemma and the task at hand to waste valuable brain space memorizing syntax. Every little boost helps. We all do it.
- gabrielroth 16y ago
  I have about 2 dozen "base programs". Whenever I need to develop something new, I grab the closest one, "save as" something else and get to work. That's an interesting method. Could you give an example of those 'base programs'—what are they, how long, how much do they do, etc.
  - edw519 16y ago
    1. basic form 2. form with multi-valued lines 3. form with data set (multi-valued parent/children) 4. form with grid 5. tabbed form 6. form with skins 7. batch (loop thru something) 8. batch update selected records in a table 9. batch dump table records --> .txt or .xml file 10. batch .txt or .xml file --> update table records 11. batch file --> create & populate database table 12. cut an email 13. traverse internal tree function 14. traverse file index(es) 15. build html from parameters 16. build javascript from parameters 17. build .pdf from parameters 18. build hp esc sequences from parameters 19. benchmark a process 20. how does that syntax work? 21. which way is faster? 22. batch string parser 23. batch source code search 24. batch source code changer I have more, but I don't have time to find them right now. OK, I think I'll add: 25. batch parse source code, identify routine for reuse
    - zem 16y ago
      a lot of these sound like they should be libraries.
shade 16y ago
> I'm never comfortable with my code I've been doing this professionally for around 12 years (and for the record, no CS degree -- my degree was technical communication with a CS emphasis) and to be honest, I'm still not very comfortable with a lot of my code either. I generally think that if you don't look at code you wrote six months ago and think "Dear god, what is this crap?" it's a sign you're not learning enough as a programmer, so I wouldn't say that being uncomfortable with your code is a bad thing by any means. The key thing in my mind is if you're always looking to improve.
__david__ 16y ago
I'm never happy with my code either. I seem to write parts of it over and over because it just doesn't look or feel right. I believe that's extremely common and from my experience, most of the really good programmers that I've known do it. My personal take is that it means you have some semblance of taste, which I think is essential. Otherwise you end up like the people who think "temp1", "temp2", and "temp3" are perfectly fine variable names and who don't think whitespace is an important concern when programming.
- jtheory 16y ago
  There's a video of Ira Glass floating around that I was sending to all of my friends a few years ago, on the nature of creativity and self-criticism. One of the great points he made was that if you ever finish a project of any kind and think it's really great -- just perfect, and just what you wanted to achieve -- it's time to hang up your hat and go home, because you're done. You aren't going to improve from there, and you won't learn anything new (though there's always more to learn, in any field). The harsh self-critique just means that your skills still don't measure up to your taste, and if you find yourself doing great without much trouble, that just means you have really poor taste.
  - jtheory 16y ago
    link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxJ3FtCJJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxJ3FtCJJA
T-R 16y ago
I found this presentation helpful, you might, too: http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/fear-of-programming.html http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/fear-of-programming.html

by jrookie 16y ago

edw519 16y ago

Thanks for your words. Your welcome. Posts like yours often help other people as well, so thank you too. I'm never comfortable with my code Neither am I. I don't think that feeling ever goes away. Whenever I look at something I wrote last year, I think 2 things: "I can't believe I wrote this," and "I hope no one else ever sees it with my name on it." It just takes a very long time for me to develop something from scratch Then don't write anything from scratch. I have about 2 dozen "base programs". Whenever I need to develop something new, I grab the closest one, "save as" something else and get to work. I'm always tweaking, improving, and adding to those base programs, kinda like automating my own continuous improvement. I'm too busy focusing on my user's dilemma and the task at hand to waste valuable brain space memorizing syntax. Every little boost helps. We all do it.

gabrielroth 16y ago
I have about 2 dozen "base programs". Whenever I need to develop something new, I grab the closest one, "save as" something else and get to work. That's an interesting method. Could you give an example of those 'base programs'—what are they, how long, how much do they do, etc.
- edw519 16y ago
  1. basic form 2. form with multi-valued lines 3. form with data set (multi-valued parent/children) 4. form with grid 5. tabbed form 6. form with skins 7. batch (loop thru something) 8. batch update selected records in a table 9. batch dump table records --> .txt or .xml file 10. batch .txt or .xml file --> update table records 11. batch file --> create & populate database table 12. cut an email 13. traverse internal tree function 14. traverse file index(es) 15. build html from parameters 16. build javascript from parameters 17. build .pdf from parameters 18. build hp esc sequences from parameters 19. benchmark a process 20. how does that syntax work? 21. which way is faster? 22. batch string parser 23. batch source code search 24. batch source code changer I have more, but I don't have time to find them right now. OK, I think I'll add: 25. batch parse source code, identify routine for reuse
  - zem 16y ago
    a lot of these sound like they should be libraries.

shade 16y ago

> I'm never comfortable with my code I've been doing this professionally for around 12 years (and for the record, no CS degree -- my degree was technical communication with a CS emphasis) and to be honest, I'm still not very comfortable with a lot of my code either. I generally think that if you don't look at code you wrote six months ago and think "Dear god, what is this crap?" it's a sign you're not learning enough as a programmer, so I wouldn't say that being uncomfortable with your code is a bad thing by any means. The key thing in my mind is if you're always looking to improve.

__david__ 16y ago

I'm never happy with my code either. I seem to write parts of it over and over because it just doesn't look or feel right. I believe that's extremely common and from my experience, most of the really good programmers that I've known do it. My personal take is that it means you have some semblance of taste, which I think is essential. Otherwise you end up like the people who think "temp1", "temp2", and "temp3" are perfectly fine variable names and who don't think whitespace is an important concern when programming.

jtheory 16y ago
There's a video of Ira Glass floating around that I was sending to all of my friends a few years ago, on the nature of creativity and self-criticism. One of the great points he made was that if you ever finish a project of any kind and think it's really great -- just perfect, and just what you wanted to achieve -- it's time to hang up your hat and go home, because you're done. You aren't going to improve from there, and you won't learn anything new (though there's always more to learn, in any field). The harsh self-critique just means that your skills still don't measure up to your taste, and if you find yourself doing great without much trouble, that just means you have really poor taste.
- jtheory 16y ago
  link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxJ3FtCJJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxJ3FtCJJA

T-R 16y ago

I found this presentation helpful, you might, too: http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/fear-of-programming.html http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/fear-of-programming.html