On 8/20/2013 6:31 PM, Gary Mort wrote:
The only scale I know of is "beginner/expert"... Studies show that for
beginners, productivity and code quality increase dramatically when they
adhere to a set of code quality rules, version control guidelines, etc as
agreed upon by the expert coders in the group.
At the same time, productive and code quality DECREASES dramatically for the
expert programmer when they are asked to adhere to those same rules.
Neither quality not productivity decrease in any way if developers adhere to
code quality rules, version control guidelines, and good programming and code
commenting practices in general. Yes, the expert coder might be able to throw
something together that works well, but how does that look three months later
when a different developer needs to extend or fix that code? I hear it every
day, developers complaining about each others code as being convoluted and
unreadable - except for one developer's code. He meticulously sticks to all
the rules and guidelines the team agreed to and adds copious amounts of
commentary, so much and so clearly written that even I (non-developer) can
easily follow. Unfortunately, he just quit, but none of the other developers
had any issues with picking up where he left off.
There is no excuse for not adhering rules, guidelines, and agreements and the
claim that ignoring all that improves productivity for expert developers in
the long run is a myth. At least going by my almost 20 years in QA and quality
related fields.
I'd think that the scales of competency for programming languages are similar
to those of natural languages. So can you express what is needed in code and
can others with little effort understand it? Further, can you read and
understand the code of others assuming they do not use some slang or shorthand
that only few comprehend?
David
_______________________________________________
New York PHP User Group Community Talk Mailing List
http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
http://www.nyphp.org/show-participation
