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It also assumes those fellow programmers are also good programmers. Can a mediocre programmer tell the difference between mediocre code and good code? To the

• andrewflnr 15y ago
  Can a mediocre programmer tell the difference between mediocre code and good code? Maybe not directly, but they can probably tell how well they understand the code and how hard it is to change. Not as well as a good programmer, since they'll have more trouble with both regardless, but somewhat.
  • spenrose 15y ago
    My bad; thanks to philwelch and saraid for flagging the error. The resulting discussion is interesting, as is 13 upvotes for a post based on a misreading :-). FWIW, my favorite bit on programmer's understanding each other's work is Yegge's Done and Gets Things Smart.
• philwelch 15y ago
  That's true. It's not so much about other programmers being a passive critic of your code so much as it is about the maintenance programmer down the line being able to understand what your code is doing and either fix bugs or add features to it. The maintenance programmer should be competent, but shouldn't have to be brilliant to understand what's doing on (except in the rare case that your code actually is doing something brilliant). If the maintenance programmer doesn't understand a basic language feature, it's his fault if he doesn't understand your use of it (be it ternary operators, blocks, list comprehensions, regular expressions...). If the maintenance programmer does understand ternary operators but you do something like nest them four layers deep, it's probably your fault if he gets lost.