8 ms·

Awesome. I once replaced an intern's 540 lines of code with 12 lines of my own. Feels great.

knodi123 13y ago
An intern? Don't pat yourself on the back TOO hard... ;-) I once sped up an intern's code by just deleting a 30-line function, and doing nothing else. Doofus didn't realize our language had a highly optimized built-in sort, and so he wrote his own inefficient sort (insertion) that overrode the existing one. Poor little guy was so proud of having chosen exactly the right sort, and then implementing it based on his recollection of college... I told him to spend the next few hours just reading the documentation of the core API for our language.
- budu3 13y ago
  Calling an intern Doofus is not a good attitude to take. Remember we were all programming noobs at some point.
- wicker 13y ago
  What language?
- AnimalMuppet 13y ago
  A quote I'm somewhat fond of: "A couple months in the laboratory can save a couple hours in the library." Unfortunately, I forget who said it.
  - Mindless2112 13y ago
    > A quote I'm somewhat fond of: "A couple months in the laboratory can save a couple hours in the library." Isn't that backwards?
    - Wohui 13y ago
      No. It's for effect.
    - ISL 13y ago
      No. It's correct. I can say this having spent months in the laboratory to learn things which were already known. Who knew that precision quartz pressure gauges were called 'manometers' in the late eighteen-hundreds? I didn't, and thought I'd invented something new for a couple months in my first year of grad school. The adage is a good one. Reading a lot and reading widely pays off.
      - netcan 13y ago
        That idea might imply that future Google's, using its old self definition are going to play an increasingly critical role in human progress.
    - fredgrott 13y ago
      No its quite correct, especially holds true for other sciences such as Biology and Chemistry
  - bpeebles 13y ago
    The programming equivalent that I've heard is: "Weeks of programming can save you hours of planning".
  - dalke 13y ago
    Frank Westheimer - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Westheimer http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Westheimer
    - AnimalMuppet 13y ago
      Thanks!
- Wohui 13y ago
  An intern? Don't pat yourself on the back TOO hard... ;-) Who's to say an anecdotal 'employee' is any better than his 'intern'?
  - protomyth 13y ago
    I can confirm that this is so true. At one place I worked I wasn't allowed to program in C, but did the C code reviews[1]. I was riding in a car with buddies who were much better C programmers than myself and making notes on some code I needed to do the review of the next morning. This is the code pattern that almost crashed our car: a = some_function(i); a1 = &a; a2 = &a1; calc(a2); with calc() reversing it out I was cussing a bit much[2] and front seat passenger had to look then driver got too curious. Sadly, this was the least "wrong" thing about the code. Its very hard to do a code review where you suggest 500 lines of C can be reduced to 50. 1) cannot have the guy doing code reviews actually coding, that would be improper 2) cussing in private allows positive, motivational tone in public
- scintill76 13y ago
  He had sorting algorithms and data structures drilled in by school. They didn't tell him it's probably a bad idea to ever actually implement them in production code.

An intern? Don't pat yourself on the back TOO hard... ;-) I once sped up an intern's code by just deleting a 30-line function, and doing nothing else. Doofus didn't realize our language had a highly optimized built-in sort, and so he wrote his own inefficient sort (insertion) that overrode the existing one. Poor little guy was so proud of having chosen exactly the right sort, and then implementing it based on his recollection of college... I told him to spend the next few hours just reading the documentation of the core API for our language.

budu3 13y ago
Calling an intern Doofus is not a good attitude to take. Remember we were all programming noobs at some point.
wicker 13y ago
What language?
AnimalMuppet 13y ago
A quote I'm somewhat fond of: "A couple months in the laboratory can save a couple hours in the library." Unfortunately, I forget who said it.
- Mindless2112 13y ago
  > A quote I'm somewhat fond of: "A couple months in the laboratory can save a couple hours in the library." Isn't that backwards?
  - Wohui 13y ago
    No. It's for effect.
  - ISL 13y ago
    No. It's correct. I can say this having spent months in the laboratory to learn things which were already known. Who knew that precision quartz pressure gauges were called 'manometers' in the late eighteen-hundreds? I didn't, and thought I'd invented something new for a couple months in my first year of grad school. The adage is a good one. Reading a lot and reading widely pays off.
    - netcan 13y ago
      That idea might imply that future Google's, using its old self definition are going to play an increasingly critical role in human progress.
  - fredgrott 13y ago
    No its quite correct, especially holds true for other sciences such as Biology and Chemistry
- bpeebles 13y ago
  The programming equivalent that I've heard is: "Weeks of programming can save you hours of planning".
- dalke 13y ago
  Frank Westheimer - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Westheimer http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Westheimer
  - AnimalMuppet 13y ago
    Thanks!
Wohui 13y ago
An intern? Don't pat yourself on the back TOO hard... ;-) Who's to say an anecdotal 'employee' is any better than his 'intern'?
- protomyth 13y ago
  I can confirm that this is so true. At one place I worked I wasn't allowed to program in C, but did the C code reviews[1]. I was riding in a car with buddies who were much better C programmers than myself and making notes on some code I needed to do the review of the next morning. This is the code pattern that almost crashed our car: a = some_function(i); a1 = &a; a2 = &a1; calc(a2); with calc() reversing it out I was cussing a bit much[2] and front seat passenger had to look then driver got too curious. Sadly, this was the least "wrong" thing about the code. Its very hard to do a code review where you suggest 500 lines of C can be reduced to 50. 1) cannot have the guy doing code reviews actually coding, that would be improper 2) cussing in private allows positive, motivational tone in public
scintill76 13y ago
He had sorting algorithms and data structures drilled in by school. They didn't tell him it's probably a bad idea to ever actually implement them in production code.