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I am a programmer who previously wrote scientific software, as a scientist. I can confirm the author's impression: the worst code usually came from the people w

by weland 12y ago

I am a programmer who previously wrote scientific software, as a scientist. I can confirm the author's impression: the worst code usually came from the people with more "software engineering" expertise, but there was a catch: I can't think of any of them who were actually good programmers in the first place. Most of them couldn't fix a division by zero exception if the program consisted in a single line that read "1/0". This isn't unexpected: everyone fucks up things that are his profession to fuck up. I was fucking up mathematical models of integrated devices and they were fucking up code. But things really aren't that bad. Honestly. When I moved to industry, the first company I worked in was a small place place where the lead developers were exceptional, both as programmers and as leaders, so we wrote exceptional code and I also thought gee, I was coding a load of crap back then. Then I moved to a larger, fairly well-known company and frankly, it's comparable. The mission-critical parts are ok, but the rest is such a gigantic pile of shit that it probably led to a few PhDs being awarded.

zo1 12y ago
"the worst code usually came from the people with more "software engineering" expertise, but there was a catch: I can't think of any of them who were actually good programmers in the first place." So you basically define an entire group of people based on only the ones you've met. Even then, you admit that none of them are good. Thus, all "software engineers" are bad? If that's not what you were trying to say, then perhaps you should clarify a bit more. But it's how I interpreted what you were saying. And I probably wouldn't be the only one.
- EpicEng 12y ago
  I think the parent was trying to say that, in his experience, these people were not good programmers to begin with. So it's not that best practices and software engineering is to blame, it's about poor and/or inexperienced programmers (we all know there are a lot of them) attempting to apply principles that they don't understand, and the result is bad code. You also see to have completely skipped the middle of the parent's comment.
- weland 12y ago
  > So you basically define an entire group of people based on only the ones you've met. Even then, you admit that none of them are good. Thus, all "software engineers" are bad? No, sorry if that's what ended up being understood (I assume you didn't read my whole comment?) What I meant was that when I worked there, I've seen worse code coming from actual programmers than from scientists who wrote code, but didn't think of themselves as programmers. This isn't much of a surprise; it was a research lab and money were fairly tight since we were researching neither weapons nor patentable drugs. Most of it was spent on equipment and scientists. The under-paid programmers were usually under-skilled, too; brighter folks quickly left for greener pa$ture$, leaving the ones who couldn't otherwise land a job behind.

by weland 12y ago

zo1 12y ago

"the worst code usually came from the people with more "software engineering" expertise, but there was a catch: I can't think of any of them who were actually good programmers in the first place." So you basically define an entire group of people based on only the ones you've met. Even then, you admit that none of them are good. Thus, all "software engineers" are bad? If that's not what you were trying to say, then perhaps you should clarify a bit more. But it's how I interpreted what you were saying. And I probably wouldn't be the only one.

EpicEng 12y ago
I think the parent was trying to say that, in his experience, these people were not good programmers to begin with. So it's not that best practices and software engineering is to blame, it's about poor and/or inexperienced programmers (we all know there are a lot of them) attempting to apply principles that they don't understand, and the result is bad code. You also see to have completely skipped the middle of the parent's comment.
weland 12y ago
> So you basically define an entire group of people based on only the ones you've met. Even then, you admit that none of them are good. Thus, all "software engineers" are bad? No, sorry if that's what ended up being understood (I assume you didn't read my whole comment?) What I meant was that when I worked there, I've seen worse code coming from actual programmers than from scientists who wrote code, but didn't think of themselves as programmers. This isn't much of a surprise; it was a research lab and money were fairly tight since we were researching neither weapons nor patentable drugs. Most of it was spent on equipment and scientists. The under-paid programmers were usually under-skilled, too; brighter folks quickly left for greener pa$ture$, leaving the ones who couldn't otherwise land a job behind.