bill but wasn't that hardware beautiful??? (gazes at 11/70 backplane on wall...)
dave On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 10:10 AM, wje <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You certainly don't need formal training to be a good programmer; I've > seen plenty of code from CS grads that's terrible, and very nice code > from art majors. > In my book, a good program is one one that's organized logically, well > documented, and performs the job it was designed to do. A god > programmer is someone that produces such programs. That's it. The > problem is that, with the advent PCs and easily-accessible programming > tools, everyone thinks they can write code, and many can't. Then what > you end up with is a tangled mess that's unmaintainable and > indecipherable. > It's interesting that any number of EE's will take great care in > circuit design, but then throw together some poorly-designed code to > run their beautiful circuit. But, this has been endemic in the hardware > industry for as long as I've been around. Hardware companies frequently > have the attitude that it's the hardware that's important and the > software is just one of those minor bits that has to get tacked on. > This was true even for some companies that should have known better; > there were plenty of HW engineers I ran into back in the old Digital > days that, even though they were building minicomputers, really > considered software an unfortunate requirement that had to be shipped > with their beautiful hardware. > Ah well, this is really wandering off-topic and my blood pressure's > going up. I think I'll go write some C code for an 8-bit micro to calm > down. And yes, I use vi. :) > Bill Ezell > ---------- > They said 'Windows or better' > so I used Linux. > > Scott Newell wrote: > > At 07:36 AM 8/16/2008, wje wrote: > > > > I have both EE and CS degrees, and I work in both worlds. In my humble > (but completely accurate and stable) opinion, Basic is not a programming > language. It's a tool of Satan designed to convince people that they are > programmers when they really should stick to their janitorial duties. > This is a subset of the general problem that everyone thinks they are > programmers, and usually think their code is perfect. But, that's a rant > for a different audience. > > > So, how do you tell if you're not a programmer, but pretending to be > one? My code is far from perfect, but it can usually be made to get > the job done. I try not to cut too many corners, and the ones that I > do cut bother me. But when you're the lone programmer on projects, > it's hard to know if you're crummy or decent, since there's no one to > measure against. (Of course, there's the metric of 'product shipped, > product works, bossman happy, paycheck cashed', but that doesn't > distinguish between good and bad programmers, just programmers that > can fool others along with themselves.) > > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > -- Dave Mallery, K5EN (ubuntu linux 8.04) PO Box 3519; T or C, NM 87901 no gates... no windows! free at last! linux counter #64628 (since 1997) "People aren't as dumb as Microsoft needs them to be." --PJ, May 2007 _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
