On Thu 22 Jul 2004 at 10:55:31, Chris Alvarez said: > Also, I don't see a clearly defined divisory line between what is > professional programming and just hobby programming.
To me, there's a very, very clear difference. A professional writes his [pretend that's a gender-neutral pronoun] code to be used by others. A hobbyist writes his code to be used by himself. The professional has to worry about things like portability, maintainability, compatibility, and usability. The hobbyist doesn't have to worry about any of this (at least not much). Most hobbyist programs are written once, and maybe tinkered with periodically. Sometimes, thanks to the GPL, they get released and maybe someone else picks them up, uses them, and maybe improves them. Occasionally, the hobbyist's program is so good it mutates into a professional-grade program thanks to a lot of community work (think fetchmail or Blender). But hobbyist programs never start with the long term, big picture in mind. Almost all of the projects I've ever worked on have been more hobbyist than professional. Even when I was writing programs for work, they were intended for in-house use, and customized to our environment. But this summer, I've actually been writing some professional-grade software for Pfizer. I've finished the program, and it's been a very instructive experience. I've had to keep a revision history and manage work by two other authors. I've had to comment my code consistently. I've had to document everything from command-line options to file formats, and I've had to integrate it into existing Pfizer software and teach others how to use it. I may not exactly be a professional programmer, but this clearly hasn't been a hobbyist's work. -- Soren Harward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://theboard.byu.edu/ "Americans are always attempting to run away from conformity, but unfortunately they always start running in the same direction." -- Art Buchwald
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