Subj : Re: Is well written code a rare species ?
To   : comp.programming
From : Charles Richmond
Date : Fri Aug 12 2005 04:49 pm

John wrote:
> 
> "Anonymous George" <someone@somewhere.nu> wrote in message
> news:pan.2005.08.12.17.56.50.318008@somewhere.nu...
> > Good day everyone,
> >
> > This is my second job now. By now, in my 10 year career,
> > I have had to maintain some programs that were written
> > by others. Most of those programs were badly written.
> > Global variables all over the place, way too long functions
> > with hardly any useful comments, badly chosen function names,
> > you name it.
> >
> > Is bad programming common practice ?
> > Is well written code a rare species ?
> >
> > I ask this, because I want to know if I should change
> > myself or if I should just go to another employer.
> > My current job is driving me crazy, because it takes so much
> > effort to do even the simplest modification to the application.
> >
> > And how can I learn during a job interview whether the company's
> > product has high quality source code ? I know every company will
> > say that about themselves.
> 
> Hi George,
> 
> IMHO; ugly code is everywhere.
> 
> I believe there is a many reasons for this :
> 
> 1. Consultants who never maintain thier own code.  I know there are probably
> some good consultants out there, but I'm willing to bet they agree with this
> statement.
> 
> 2. Programmers who don't understand the code they are maintaining.
> 
> 3. Deadlines undermining the programmers better judgement.
> 
> 4. Project evolution turning a good design into a bad one.  Either over the
> course of many years, or months if the requirements/specs weren't done
> correctly.
> 
> 5. Weak programming culture.
> 
> 6. The fastest coders are rewarded, even when they cause most of the
> maintainence work ... because nobody watches who created the bug.
> 
IMO you have omitted one reason:  really *bad* programmers. I took over
some code from a guy who was fired, and it was the worst I have ever
seen. Sections of code that should have been made functions...were just
copied over into the program when needed. In C, the word TRUE is typically
defined as 1 and FALSE defined as 0. This guy made FALSE an integer variable,
and changed the value a few times in the code. Worst of all, the code
was all over the place, with *no* consistent indentation even attempted.

I had to toss out his code and write the application over. In so doing,
I found that when the original programmer did *not* understand how to
handle certain inputs, he would just ignore those inputs.

So be sure and add "bad programmers" to your list of problems.


--
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|  Charles and Francis Richmond  It is moral cowardice to leave  |
|                                undone what one perceives right |
|  richmond at plano dot net     to do.   -- Confucius           |
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