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Have you ever inherited code from good programmers?
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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I have recently, actually. One of our senior devs left the company for greener pastures and I moved into his team to pick up his work. His code is actually quite nice, and a lot of it is way beyond stuff I have ever done before, so his intuitive naming conventions and copious comments are quite helpful.
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde
Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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Nice, I must say it's not too often I hear that.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Pity the bad programmer who inherits code from a good programmer. He probably wouldn't understand any of it.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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You are dead, and you've gone to heaven.
Lucky you.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Quote: intuitive naming conventions and copious comments
...is that the sound of the wings flapping on that flock of pigs flying by?
Actually, I do that myself - but usually I am the only one that sees them. I still appreciate them six months, or more, later when coming back to the code.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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jeron1 wrote: Have you ever inherited code from good programmers?
No, because good code from good programmers usually doesn't result in the client getting pissed off at the development team and switching to another code house.
Marc
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I knew there was a reason I liked you.
Where I work no one writes garbage code. We just have different "programming styles", or so I've been told.
Personally, I prefer not to cover buffalo chips with ketchup and call them fries. And it doesn't matter to me who wrote the garbage code: me (more than my fair share), you, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Whatshisname, or the Pope. Garbage code is still garbage code whether or not the application works as the user wants.
"...JavaScript could teach Dyson how to suck." -- Nagy Vilmos
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Z.C.M. wrote: buffalo chips with ketchup and call them fries.
BWWs Buffalo Chips[^]
They're actually quite a bit better than fries... 
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde
Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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Marc Clifton wrote: bad programmers
Also known as anyone other than one's self.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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RyanDev wrote: Also known as anyone other than one's self.
Give this man a quarter. 
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No quarter given, nor expected.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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RyanDev wrote: Also known as anyone other than one's self.
Quite so, but I tend to rank myself in the "least bad" category.
Marc
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I like the name Critical Software Development, the implication is that if it is not critical you don't need me! I think it may still be registered to me in Oz!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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No developer ever sets out to write bad code. Every developer writes the best code they can given the time, information and skills they have at the time. With hindsight, we can all look back at even our best work and see room for improvement.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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When I look at what I'm currently working on, there must have been a contest over many years to write the worst and most unmaintainable code.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Dominic Burford wrote: No developer ever sets out to write bad code.
On the other hand, there are developers that should have the self-introspection to step away from the keyboard.
Marc
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And of course your projects and code are perfect! Calm down dear, take a chill pill and thank your lucky stars you aren't shovelling sh*t for a living!
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Paul S Wilcox wrote: nd of course your projects and code are perfect!
Of course!
Paul S Wilcox wrote: and thank your lucky stars you aren't shovelling sh*t for a living!
The amusing thing about that is I've actually volunteered on a farm school to muck out the stables and sheep pens.
Marc
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We have inherited some not so good projects as well that we have to maintain. The one was written by a slightly dyslexic self-taught coder. The other by someone relatively fresh out of university. It has some interesting things like all events being handled in the apps main window instead of the dialog being shown. I hate working on that project, but at least you know where to look for the code. Code reviews would have helped sort out this mess and would have helped the dev learn how to do things better.
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Been there, done that indeed. I inherited a moderate size body of code when the company 're-organized', and then spent about 40% of my time over the next two years re-writing every damned bit of it except for the visuals. It's part of a WPF app. The UI looked really nice, but the XAML creating the UI and the code-behind was absolutely wretched.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Working on trying to wade through a large application that was originally designed by persons who couldn't write "Hello World!" in HTML. Add to that a passing army of contractors who added droves of classes that have to be dissected before you can make small changes, like don't approve something that is marked failed.
I just need a day off, way off!
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Marc Clifton wrote: And very few things piss me off more than having to spend even a miniscule fraction of my time on this planet fixing other people's sh*t.
Strange, that's one of the things I actually enjoy. I get a good feeling of accomplishment by making a system better. Sometimes, that means introducing new functionality, sometimes it means cleaning up the turds.
I also think that's made me a better developer. You know, some people are only there to serve as an example to others sorta thing...seeing all that over the years makes me more aware of sh*t not to do.
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agolddog wrote: Strange, that's one of the things I actually enjoy. I get a good feeling of accomplishment by making a system better.
Indeed, so do I. Unfortunately, there are numerous "garbage in, garbage out" situations that apply not just to data but to code, and there's really nothing I can contribute that makes a system better unless it were rewritten from scratch. And that's usually not realistic, so the cycle of bandaids and patches continues.
Marc
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Message Closed
modified 6-Jan-20 17:04pm.
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