Post #105,590
6/10/03 6:32:54 PM
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Talent how measured?
Talent counts for a lot in this business.
I have to disagree. One's political savvy-ness counts more in my observation. Talent in building software is hard to measure from most managers' viewpoint. They can measure how fast it takes you to build a new project from scratch, but that ignores long-term maintainability. The manager will probably be transferred or promoted by the time maintenance issues pop up. Further, somebody who might be great at writing maintainable code from scratch may be crappy at maintaining spaghetti code from others. There is an article around somewhere about the swamp-guide versus the engineer. Corporate culture tends to favor a swamp-guide mentality. In other words, somebody who can navigate messes is valued over somebody who prevents messes.
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Post #105,591
6/10/03 6:34:29 PM
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Point == missed.
I wasn't talking about success. I was talking about ability to create good software.
As far as swamp guides go, that's another discussion.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #105,623
6/10/03 10:02:50 PM
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Software development is like driving
....everybody thinks theirs is the best. Give me my favorite tools (or the time to make my own), and I can crank out maintainable[1] custom biz software faster than a raven can blink. I think most software developers will make a similar claim.
[1] At least for me. If you don't think like me, then you may not find it maintainable.
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Post #105,633
6/10/03 10:45:49 PM
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Uhhh...
[1] At least for me. If you don't think like me, then you may not find it maintainable. The key point of "maintainable" code in the corporate world is that ANYONE can maintain it, not just the original coder. If the original coder is the only one who can maintain it because she's the only one who can understand it, then the code is worthless. IMNSHO. -YendorMike
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #105,648
6/11/03 1:15:52 AM
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ANYONE is a little too strong a requirement! :)
Most anyone skilled in the language and system environment, I would buy.
The KISS principle is paramount with few exceptions.
Alex
"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life." -- Eric Hoffer
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Post #105,649
6/11/03 1:33:26 AM
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Well, OK...
...I personally thought that was implicit, but if you need to be explicit, then I'll have to agree. ;-)
-YendorMike
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #105,726
6/11/03 2:23:03 PM
6/11/03 2:26:38 PM
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Audience
The key point of "maintainable" code in the corporate world is that ANYONE can maintain it, not just the original coder.
But there seems to be a point of abstraction/indirection that if you go beyond, then you confuse "average" developers, and sometimes developers who use different abstraction techniques. Should one leave the duplication in place?
"Easy to figure out" and "easy to change" are not necessarily the same things. Some designs are easy to figure out, but hard to change because something is replicated all over the place. Others you have to figure out some crazy framework that may be easy to change once you find the right spot, but finding the right spot may be hard, and predicting the consequences of the single change might be nearly impossible.
________________
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Edited by tablizer
June 11, 2003, 02:26:38 PM EDT
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Post #105,751
6/11/03 4:14:10 PM
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Two words...
[...] predicting the consequences of the single change might be nearly impossible. Unit. Testing. -YendorMike
[link|http://www.hope-ride.org/|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
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Post #105,754
6/11/03 4:26:47 PM
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Another Two Words.
Amen. Brother.
And *I* don't program for a living.
| [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg] - IT Grand-Master for Anti-President | | [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] |
THEY ARE WATCHING YOU. The time has come for you to take the last step. You must love THEM. It is not enough to obey THEM. You must love THEM. PEACE BEGETS WAR, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, STRENGTH IN IGNORANCE.
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Post #105,769
6/11/03 6:07:02 PM
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Megadittos
I'm reading Fowler's "Refactoring" at present and becoming more of a believer.
Tom Sinclair
President McNeal: "And now, the man who will lead us in our proud struggle for freedom. Fresh from his bloody triumph over the Pacifists of the Ghandi Nebula: 25 star general Zap Brannigan!"
Leela: "Sigh."
Bender: "Hey look, Leela. It's that idiotic windbag you slept with."
Leela: "The Earth is under attack. Can't we just forget about that?"
Bender: "Evidently not."
- 'When Aliens Attack', Futurama
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Post #105,801
6/12/03 2:31:04 AM
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Most places i've been don't have unit tests
I suggested it at my last major gig because things were growing too complicted, but nobody seemed interested.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,811
6/12/03 8:26:44 AM
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The point being...
YOU should always use them. Anything you do, should use them. They are easy to integrate into your coding, regardless of what others use as a practice.
| [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg] - IT Grand-Master for Anti-President | | [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry/|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] |
THEY ARE WATCHING YOU. The time has come for you to take the last step. You must love THEM. It is not enough to obey THEM. You must love THEM. PEACE BEGETS WAR, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, STRENGTH IN IGNORANCE.
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Post #105,857
6/12/03 3:24:24 PM
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OT - new LRPDism? (new thread)
Created as new thread #105856 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=105856|OT - new LRPDism?]
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575|Ashton Brown]
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Post #105,861
6/12/03 3:30:57 PM
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regarding unit testing
I have yet to find an easy solution to unit testing web apps, especially with function-poor languages like ColdFusion. Plus, you often need access to a testing database, and the DBA does not allow such in some places. I tried to install a local copy of Oracle, but it did not work.
If I pushed it, I could have probably done such with a Python script or something, but it seemed like a lot more work than just being really careful and/or letting the customer find it (eeeek!). Plus, the requirements were still changing.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,863
6/12/03 3:35:56 PM
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Re: regarding unit testing
[link|http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/|http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/]
Capable of testing javascript as well.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #105,772
6/11/03 6:18:08 PM
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Don' you be talkin' about 'abstraction'...
Them thar's OO words!
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #105,802
6/12/03 2:32:03 AM
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Bull. Relational is more abstract than OO
OO has no "math". It is just a big messy sea of classes all connected in a "navigational structure" (graph of nodes/records).
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #105,887
6/12/03 6:09:32 PM
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And tables are nothing but...
...a big messy sea of fields all connected in a "navigational structure" (graph of tables/records).
Hmmmm...
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #105,937
6/13/03 2:06:01 AM
6/13/03 2:08:29 AM
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Relational does not dictate underlying implementation
whether the "guts" use navigational structures or not is immaterial. Everything is 1's and 0's in the end, but we hide that fact most of the time. Navigational structures perhaps are the assembly language or machine language of databases.
________________
oop.ismad.com
Edited by tablizer
June 13, 2003, 02:08:29 AM EDT
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Post #106,254
6/16/03 4:28:23 PM
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Bryce, what ARE you talking about
Underlying any relational database is a table structure, with links between key fields in the tables. The ability to "relate" between tables is indeed a navigational structure. It's inherent, you get ift for free, and how it's done doesn't matter, so long as it works.
I don't know how you can say that a relational DB doesn't use a navigational structure with a straight face, unless you're trolling (in which case, I wouldn't expect a straight face).
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #106,298
6/17/03 2:25:34 AM
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You misunderstood me
Underlying any relational database is a table structure, with links between key fields in the tables.
Not necessarily. They are only links when you want them to be. For example, a join expression can be anything you want it to be:
select * from cities1, cities2 where cities1.name like
cities2.title || '%'
matches similarly-named cities.
This is a purely "calculated" join. There is no pre-set links. RDBMS may put commonly used links in some kind of index-like thing to speed them up, but that is an optimization detail that is hidden from the query builder. In relational, you ask WHAT you want, not HOW to get it. (This is in some ways similar to Prolog I hear.) With nav's, you generally have to tell it how to get stuff, which "path" to take.
I don't know how you can say that a relational DB doesn't use a navigational structure with a straight face
I did NOT say they didn't. My point is that it is an implementation detail that is hidden. Languages like Python or Pascal may use bytecodes or machine code underneath to carry out commands, but the language user does not have to really care. The relationship between relational and nav structures is similar. Navigational is the proverbial bytecode of structure manipulation.
________________
oop.ismad.com
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Post #106,300
6/17/03 3:27:56 AM
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And *why* do you think that happens all the time...? (new thread)
Created as new thread #106299 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=106299|And *why* do you think that happens all the time...?]
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Post #105,635
6/10/03 10:52:37 PM
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Most software developers are wrong...
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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