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What’s the first thing that you as a senior developer would say to that person before seeing or testing their project? Let me guess — you’re thinking, “Is it r

What’s the first thing that you as a senior developer would say to that person before seeing or testing their project? Let me guess — you’re thinking, “Is it responsive?” Does it reflect poorly on me if this sounds like a rather convoluted hypothetical? Then again, I'm not involved in web development, for what it's worth. Maybe there are people who actually think like this.

doktrin 12y ago
It sounded silly to me as well. I do work with web technologies, albeit in research and not industry. Maybe it's a web startup thing.
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AustinG08 12y ago
It is slightly convoluted. The author also references a completed project with that being the first question, but if it ISN'T responsive, one could argue that it's not completed :P
outsidetheparty 12y ago
The phrase that came to my mind was "wildly disproportionate straw man", but, yeah. I'm mildly sympathetic to the author's point -- there certainly exists a subset of developers who are more interested in bashing other peoples' code because it's not properly buzzword-compliant / in the wrong language / the wrong framework / uses the wrong whitespace formatting / does or does not include semicolons, than in evaluating it on the actual merits. (Though I suspect other industries also have their fair share of pedants and egotists.) Maybe I'm misreading but it seems the criticism the author cites was in the context of job interviews, which isn't exactly the right place to be looking for mentorship or supportive "A for effort" type feedback. It also seems like she isn't differentiating between critique of the code and critique of the coder. (To be fair plenty of people have a hard time keeping these separate, whether on the giving or on the receiving end.) The point of asking "is it responsive?" is -- or at least should be -- "responsive is important, maybe you should do something about that", not "I am unimpressed and you are a bad person who should feel bad."
sosuke 12y ago
I've certainly heard that said in jest, sarcasm and wit are things many programmers hold dear and believe they are best in.

doktrin 12y ago

It sounded silly to me as well. I do work with web technologies, albeit in research and not industry. Maybe it's a web startup thing.

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AustinG08 12y ago

It is slightly convoluted. The author also references a completed project with that being the first question, but if it ISN'T responsive, one could argue that it's not completed :P

outsidetheparty 12y ago

The phrase that came to my mind was "wildly disproportionate straw man", but, yeah. I'm mildly sympathetic to the author's point -- there certainly exists a subset of developers who are more interested in bashing other peoples' code because it's not properly buzzword-compliant / in the wrong language / the wrong framework / uses the wrong whitespace formatting / does or does not include semicolons, than in evaluating it on the actual merits. (Though I suspect other industries also have their fair share of pedants and egotists.) Maybe I'm misreading but it seems the criticism the author cites was in the context of job interviews, which isn't exactly the right place to be looking for mentorship or supportive "A for effort" type feedback. It also seems like she isn't differentiating between critique of the code and critique of the coder. (To be fair plenty of people have a hard time keeping these separate, whether on the giving or on the receiving end.) The point of asking "is it responsive?" is -- or at least should be -- "responsive is important, maybe you should do something about that", not "I am unimpressed and you are a bad person who should feel bad."

sosuke 12y ago

I've certainly heard that said in jest, sarcasm and wit are things many programmers hold dear and believe they are best in.