Re: Is it correct?

[LesleyB]

I have to agree with tantarbobus on this. Some of the points raised are very difficult for a novice to evaluate.

I think that 'does the code not do something it isn't meant to do' question is important as part of the 'does it work' question. (This is effectively asking the question, is the code within spec.) At a very simple level, most of us novices are monumentally relieved when we get a regexp to match at all. At last it works! However, how many perl novices then check whether that regexp matches what it oughtn't to? I guess this is where testing comes in and being able to effecitively test something is part general programming experience and part specific language experience. I haven't yet used the Test module yet because I feel I haven't written anything needing it yet.

I also feel there is definitely a particular mindset to be adopted to be able to write terse but informative perl code . My code is verbose and I would love to be able to improve its terseness but I don't yet know how.

Giving a novice along a few breadcrumbs along the trail is no bad thing. It is up to that individual to commit the time to learning but having guides along the way does help tremendously.

[amarquis]

My first reaction was similar to yours and tantarbobus's. I wasn't thinking along the lines of "a novice would have trouble grading themselves on this scale" but rather "a novice would have no motivation to do so."

It's not that I don't think the list is good - in fact, I think it is great - It's that one has to be burned by many of these things before they care about them.

Does it work? I'm trying to think honestly how vigorously I tested for and checked edge/corner cases for correctness before my programs blew up in my face a few times. The answer: Not very much.

Will I be able to read it later? Again, not something I cared about before I had to maintain my old code months and months later.

Maybe I am on the stubborn side of the scale, but I think most novices, especially in programming, are more task driven than quality driven. Maybe the shift towards thinking about these things, writing quality code today to save yourself tomorrow, is one of the big gulfs between novice and expert :).