Re:Challenge to scientists: does your ten-year-old code stil...
by analog31 on Monday August 24, 2020 @05:02PM
(#24265464)
Well, I know the quality of my own code before I got some advice. And I've watched colleagues doing this as well.
My own code was quite clean in the 1980s, when the limitations on the machines themselves tended to keep things fairly compact with minimal dependencies. And I learned a decent "structured programming" discipline.
As I moved into more modern languages, my code kind of degenerated into a giant hairball of dependencies and abstractions. "Just because you can do that, doesn't mean you should." I've kind of learned that the commercial programmers limit themselves to a few familiar patterns, and if you try to create a new pattern for every problem, your code will be hard to hand off.
Scientists would benefit from receiving some training in good programming hygiene.
My own code was quite clean in the 1980s, when the limitations on the machines themselves tended to keep things fairly compact with minimal dependencies. And I learned a decent "structured programming" discipline.
As I moved into more modern languages, my code kind of degenerated into a giant hairball of dependencies and abstractions. "Just because you can do that, doesn't mean you should." I've kind of learned that the commercial programmers limit themselves to a few familiar patterns, and if you try to create a new pattern for every problem, your code will be hard to hand off.
Scientists would benefit from receiving some training in good programming hygiene.