The Importance of Humility in Software Development (2020)

Re:The Importance of Humility in Software Development (2020) by ChrisMarshallNY on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @08:17AM (#27129410)

Personally, I dislike Java, and I never got good enough at it to develop any worthwhile opinions. That said, I really despise PHP, but spent 20 years, writing it, and doing a fairly good job, because it was the best tool to give me the results I needed.

I feel that if we will use a tool, we need to take the time to become proficient with it.

Here's an article that I reference fairly often. It's sort of a "reality check": https://veekaybee.github.io/2019/05/10/java8/

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Re:The Importance of Humility in Software Development (2020) by denton-scratch on Wednesday May 12, 2021 @11:21AM (#27131371)

"we need to take the time to become proficient with it."

I have thought this for a long time.

I have reckoned that it takes me at least six months full-time to come to grips with a new programming language (I'm 65 now, I learn slower, I'm retired, and I'll be damned if I'll learn any more).

Over the years, I've worked in teams dominated by young whippersnappers who are very keen to learn the latest language/library/framework. But they don't allocate 6 months; they seem to think they can press their new tool into production after just 6 days' practice. The result was unsually unmaintainable code.

I understand the motivation of the whippersnappers; they expect to change jobs within the next 6-12 months, and they want to be able to put the latest hot shit on their CV. But we ended up with systems that only a couple of people in the team could read, let alone maintain.

Write Simple Code. Don't Be Clever.

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