Sorry. I know this is getting pretty far off topic. But... I couldn't agree more with the first sentence of this post. "Show-off" programming should only be used for entertainment, or not at all.
That said, I think there's a difference between a show-off programmer (who may think he's really cool and smart for writing code that nobody else can understand) and a person who's "new to perl" and using well regarded reference books to solve problems. I deal with many people here who are new to perl, new to programming, even. It's a struggle in patience to get these people up to speed, sometimes. The people I work with are very smart, capable, eager, and motivated. They are sometimes, however, ignorant of many programming practices and techniques. I can't imagine a quicker way to destroy those last two qualities (eager and motivated) than to laugh at them for doing a little research (rtfm, so to speak), finding an answer to a problem and using it. In my experience, it's a good way to make people pull back, not venture outside the tried and true, become apathetic, and quickly become employed somewhere else. I've found that if I can explain to somebody how they could improve on what they have, and explain to them why I feel my way is better, then they walk away happy, and feel like they're learning, too. Then (usually) they do get better, and learn. Just my two cents. I obviously don't know the specifics of the situations described here. I just know that people make mistakes when they're learning, and I've found it's best not to laugh at them for it. (It's good sometimes, however, to laugh with them after they understand what their mistake was:) And mostly, I just wanted to express my feeling that there's a big difference between a hot-shot show-off and somebody trying to learn. Sorry again for the fairly lengthy OT post. John Gilmore-Baldwin P.S. I also agree with the penultimate paragraph of this post :) > ---------- > From: BeardedDragon.org > Reply To: BeardedDragon.org > Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2002 2:18 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Pk Eidesis; Randal L. Schwartz > Subject: Re: mod_perl stopped working... > > Gotta agree with you here. I hate seeing people throw away coding > standards and good coding practices because they thing that it's cool > or > should be done in those obscure, "show-off" ways. Personally, when I > see > someone show me a piece of code that I have to take a minute to > understand > just one line of code, I laugh at them and make them feel stupid. > Actually, we did that at my company just last week. We're 80% perl, > and > use it in ways that many people would think that it can't do... but > can do > just fine. > > The other new guy (I'm also new there) wrote a Perl program. He's new > to > Perl (I am not). Well, there was some obscure nested tertiary > operator > with regex's in it. Aparently something he actually got out of > CookBook. > Well, first we told him to only use CookBook for ideas, not syntax... > then > we passed the code around and let everyone enjoy a good laugh. I > don't > think he'll make the mistake of writing code that isn't clear again... > especially not a direct copy from the Perl CookBook (good book, bad > habits > taught though). > > It's like some people think there's actually a performance gain from > writing obscure code, when in reality that's not necessarily true. I > mean, if you REALLY need a performance gain, write that portion in C, > or > some other language that's going to be faster. Otherwise, leave it > clear > to read, and cut down your maintenance costs. > > Just my rants... :) > > Cheers, > -Alex > >
