[e_i_pi]

modi123_1, on 27 August 2013 - 02:50 AM, said:

Things overheard that (in the last week or so) that annoyed the hell out of me:

• I don't need to budget time for maintenance.
  
• QA and testers are less important people than a BA or PM.
  
• I want to budget half my project time for "optimization".
  
• Agile programming is the tits.
  
• Test driven development is the _only_ way to go.

Do we work the same office, or do our workplaces just hire the same sort of people?

The company I do a lot of work for moved to Agile development several months ago. Month #1 saw 8 deployments go out to production within a period of about 4 hours. I suppose you have to be agile in order to dodge that many bullets though.

Along the lines of your second point though, here's a rough rule I have...

"If the developer is estimating the time it takes to implement an enhancement, add 25%, that's your final figure. If a BA or PM is estimating the time it takes to implement an enhancement, add 4 hours, double it, then add on the hours it takes to fix the 15 or so items downstream that are affected"

[NeoTifa]

That I am the best programmer of all time.

[GWatt]

jon.kiparsky, on 26 August 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

I should start by saying that I find the positions that "everything is just gotos when you get to the low level" and "you don't need to use gotos to do anything" equally abhorrent arguments. They are both true, but uselessly so.
I think that the use of gotos in C programming for cleaning up resources at function exit makes sense.
Additionally, I give this simple prime sieve. Both the goto and non-goto code are included. I think the goto code is easier to read.

Spoiler

primes[0]=2;
for (prime_candidate=3; index<prime_count; prime_candidate+=2) {
  for (i=0; primes[i]*primes[i]<=prime_candidate; i++) {
    if (prime_candidate%primes[i]==0){
      goto not_prime;
    }
  }
  primes[++index]=prime_candidate;
  not_prime:;
}

//
//
//

primes[0]=2;
for (prime_candidate=3; index<prime_count; prime_candidate+=2) {
  isprime=1;
  for (i=0; primes[i]*primes[i]<=prime_candidate&&isprime; i++) {
    if (prime_candidate%primes[i]==0){
      isprime=0;
    }
  }
  if (isprime) {
    primes[++index]=prime_candidate;
  }
}

[depricated]

supersloth, on 26 August 2013 - 05:20 PM, said:

depricated, on 26 August 2013 - 05:10 PM, said:

supersloth, on 26 August 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

so in a lot less words.... you are NOT the 'i live to code type' and actually live a life.

I think I find a balance in the things I love

SO THEN YOU AREN'T THE KIND OF PERSON B9 AND I ARE DESCRIBING IS THIS REALLY THAT HARD

I think the kind of person you and B9 are describing doesn't exist! It's a charicature.

[cfoley]

Here is my controversial opinion: All programming languages fail in an important way. They don't make it easy enough for non-specialists to make custom software.

[Michael26]

Should programming be like "going to the store to buy tomatoes"?

[cfoley]

Please link to the original article (I get a 404) or, preferably, make the point yourself.

[Michael26]

Here is the link

[cfoley]

So, are you agreeing with my point controversial opinion?

This post has been edited by cfoley: 27 August 2013 - 05:15 AM

[Michael26]

Yes, they don't make it easy enough and they shouldn't, they should maintain some level of complexity, thought and planing(what level, that is open to debate) or else programming would be reduced to "drag and drop" or click a few buttons and you would have fully functional program without understanding how it works. If i were any better at this i would already be Expert or Mentor here on DIC.

[ishkabible]

That guy from Michael's article is an idiot.

[jon.kiparsky]

cfoley, on 27 August 2013 - 05:32 AM, said:

Here is my controversial opinion: All programming languages fail in an important way. They don't make it easy enough for non-specialists to make custom software.

I don't think is very controversial. What would be controversial would be to claim that this failure is not a necessary fact of language design - in other words, that if we just try really hard we'll get a language that allows us to express complex design in a human-friendly syntax and get a correct program in return.

Well, maybe that wouldn't be "controversial" unless by controversial you mean "stupid". We can't even express complex design in natural languages and expect to get a correct program in return...

[cfoley]

Michael26, on 27 August 2013 - 01:55 PM, said:

Yes, they don't make it easy enough and they shouldn't, they should maintain some level of complexity, thought and planing(what level, that is open to debate) or else programming would be reduced to "drag and drop" or click a few buttons and you would have fully functional program without understanding how it works. If i were any better at this i would already be Expert or Mentor here on DIC.

It sounds like you are frightened of letting the riff raff in. If the barrier to creating good software could be lowered, doesn't that mean the experts can more easily create better software?

jon.kiparsky, on 27 August 2013 - 03:11 PM, said:

I don't think is very controversial. What would be controversial would be to claim that this failure is not a necessary fact of language design - in other words, that if we just try really hard we'll get a language that allows us to express complex design in a human-friendly syntax and get a correct program in return.

Well, maybe that wouldn't be "controversial" unless by controversial you mean "stupid". We can't even express complex design in natural languages and expect to get a correct program in return...

I'm not saying that expressing things in natural language is the way to go. I don't even know what the solution would look like, but we don't have it and I think that's a shame.

[BenignDesign]

depricated, on 27 August 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

supersloth, on 26 August 2013 - 05:20 PM, said:

depricated, on 26 August 2013 - 05:10 PM, said:

supersloth, on 26 August 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

so in a lot less words.... you are NOT the 'i live to code type' and actually live a life.

I think I find a balance in the things I love

SO THEN YOU AREN'T THE KIND OF PERSON B9 AND I ARE DESCRIBING IS THIS REALLY THAT HARD

I think the kind of person you and B9 are describing doesn't exist! It's a charicature.

I truly hope you're right, but sadly... I think there are a few of these folks in the world... right here on these boards, even.

[Michael26]

Good software is created by good programmers, but how will you become good if you lower the barrier?