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The real problem is that the while the same code might look obvious to John Carmack, it might not look obvious to $outsourced_bodyshop_ressource_0443434. Then
by 908B64B197 5y ago
The real problem is that the while the same code might look obvious to John Carmack, it might not look obvious to $outsourced_bodyshop_ressource_0443434.
Then you start coding for the lowest common denominator.
- runawaybottle 5y agoWhat if the NYTimes had journalists that described the news in their specific prose or worse, poetically. Speak plainly, it’s the news, report it as plainly and accurately as possible. Often many people like to attach mathematics and science to Software Engineering to signal elitism, but truthfully this profession is a lot closer to writing. Write clearly, first and foremost, and above all else. $outsourced_bodyshop_ressource_0443434 needs to be able to read the news too.
- 908B64B197 5y ago"Let's not use inheritance, it's complicated and could confuse programmers. Better to just copy-paste code." "Source control? I don't know, this git command line is a little bit too much. Let's just use zip files and email the source"
- runawaybottle 5y agoThat is not what I am suggesting, but alas, you seemed to have proven my point. I did not write clearly enough, and behold the outcome. Now imagine if we all do this in a codebase.
- 908B64B197 5y agoWhat were you suggesting?
- andrewflnr 5y agoYour writing was fine. HN is big enough that you can't take a single critical comment as strong evidence you were unclear. Maybe it's them, not you.
- JanisL 5y agoI'm not sure if this comment was in jest or not but I've seen both of these things happen in real projects.
- feoren 5y agoInheritance is the worst method of code reuse ever invented. I virtually never use it, and whenever I do, I usually regret it later.
- xupybd 5y agoI'm starting to notice a correlation between my prose and my code. Writing has not been my strength and I've quietly worked on it. Learning to organize my thoughts to best communicate with others has enabled me to organize my code for others to read. I've found this has improved the maintainability of my code. I wish I had put more effort into writing through out my schooling and early career. I've noticed that the most successful business people I know are good at written communication. Much like programming often the better communicators write less to achieve more.
- danielovichdk 5y agoGreat comment. Thank you
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> What if the NYTimes had journalists that described the news in their specific prose or worse, poetically. Eh, I think the news landscape would be improved if there was a news source providing it in poetic form. I wouldn't want everyone to do it that way.
- pojzon 5y agoRecently we hired a consultant for our infrastructure. I wrote the code for that infrastructure using best practices I learnt from books, workshops etc. While some ppl from my team have huge issues understanding it, the consultant read it ONCE and knew everything. He was simply a good dev that had a pleasure working for other big shops that wrote the books I read and lead those workshops I attended to. So its like always a matter of „Do I hire cheap HR resource or an expert?” question. Nothing more, nothing less. The issue with writing smart code is that there is not a lot of smart devs. Thats why we always derotate to lowest denominator.
- 1270018080 5y agoAre you the good guy in this story? Writing code that no one else can understand unless they've read multiple books to push through the complexity? Do you write in Java by chance?
- pojzon 5y agoGood guy? Depends how you define that. And it would be challenge to write infra code in java..
- baobabKoodaa 5y agoIn my opinion, writing code that is so complex it takes an expert to understand it, is undesirable.
- lycopodiopsida 5y agoBut where do we draw the line? If someone does not understand the idea behind interfaces or proper exception handling, who is to blame? If you write Java and Streams are the natural solution, but the developer you work with never bothered to look them up, because they are "complex" and "FP-something"? These are polemic examples, but there is a line where sticking to the lowest common knowledge will hurt your best developers by either sucking the joy out of their work or by forcing write them a lot of boilerplate code. And I've heard of teams, where the whole team would ban features of a new standard of the language, because they've written code for 20 years without them before.
- Aeolun 5y agoThere is no code in existence that will look obvious to $outsourced_bodyshop_ressource_04434.