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Re^4: Keeping, and advancing in, your job

by leriksen (Curate)
on Mar 03, 2005 at 23:52 UTC ( [id://436413]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re^3: Keeping, and advancing in, your job
in thread Keeping, and advancing in, your job

Someone wrote a 10,000 line module ? And gave you no test harness ?

Then the first part of refactoring is to bitchslap the original developer....

...it is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong. - Warren Buffet

  • Comment on Re^4: Keeping, and advancing in, your job

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Re^5: Keeping, and advancing in, your job
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Mar 04, 2005 at 04:18 UTC
    Really? Where's your first major module? Does it have a comprehensive test suite that registers at least a 90% using Devel::Cover? Heck, I have a CPAN distribution that is close to 10,000 lines that barely breaks 60% coverage and a multi-billion dollar company uses it as a major underpinnign for a $100Million/year application.

    Remember - the first rule of code is "It has to work". Nothing more, nothing less. Anything beyond that is gravy. Code will not suddenly develop bugs, just by sitting there and being used. Software develops bugs only by developers introducing them.

    Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
    Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
    Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
    Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.

      "Code will not suddenly develop bugs"

      Yes, code can "suddenly" develop bugs, if something external changes, such as the environment or input data (remember Y2K?). Just because "it's been working for years" doesn't mean it can't break in the future, even without a code change.
        1. Many of those applications that were hit by Y2K were developed 20+ years earlier and were supposed to live for 5-10 years. They were way out of spec.
        2. It's arguable that 2-digit years were a premature optimization, hence a bug.

        The point behind me statement is that many younger developers feel that code "rots" - that it will break in spontaneous ways if they don't get to rewrite it. If it worked yesterday and, all things being equal, no-one touched the code/environment, it will most likely work today.

        Being right, does not endow the right to be rude; politeness costs nothing.
        Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
        Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
        Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.

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