You know you're a crappy programmer when...

Mybowlcut · 2009-03-20T08:41:36

I was recently googling and found this blog. I don't know if this has been done, but it could potentially be a good source of laughter, shame and education. A lot of users here on GD should know the signs of a crappy programmer - most of us through exhibiting said crappiness ourselves at some point in time. So, you know you're a crappy programmer when...

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by Mybowlcut March 08, 2009 04:47 AM

116 comments, last by Mantrid 15 years, 1 month ago

Dmytry

1,151

March 09, 2009 03:38 AM

Quote:Original post by Tape_Worm
Wait, I'm lost... How does piracy even enter this conversation? No one mentioned anything about piracy.

Very simply. And i'm sure you're not a slightest bit lost. In my experience, almost everyone whom flame gimp (and especially, whom flame gimp developers) do so because they prefer to use pirated photoshop (at same $0 price) and therefore don't appreciate fact that gimp is free (and developers wrote it on their personal time) while photoshop isn't (with large team of full-time, well paid developers). People whom bought photoshop typically dont flame gimp and people whom dont use photoshop at all don't flame gimp either. (edit: and you can google for photoshop piracy, its so prevalent there is more pirate users than legal users)
For software developed in spare time by handful of people, gimp seems quite good, and gimp developers most certainly don't deserve to be attacked for its problems (which largely come from rather small workforce comparing to commercial software), even if it sucked.

To return back to topic:
You know you're a crappy programmer when...
you flame developers of some free/open source software, especially software which at least some other people find to be good and useful, and which is far beyond your ability to write or design.

[Edited by - Dmytry on March 9, 2009 5:38:04 AM]

Cyber_Cactus

106

March 09, 2009 04:13 AM

You are a crappy programmer when you write over 10,000 lines of code without adding any comments.

Daaark

3,556

March 09, 2009 05:30 AM

Sorry guys. Anyone working on GIMP should hang their head in shame. There are only 3 reasons to like GIMP

1) You only know how to make programmer art
2) You've never used a real paint program
3) You are an OSS zealot who argues with loyalty instead of common sense

Why doesn't right click draw with my background color instead of opening up a useless context menu? Why doesn't the mouse wheel zoom instead of a useless vertical scroll (when I can get that by clicking in the middle button anyways, and scroll in any direction). Why do I need a 35 step tutorial to make outlined text (after converting to raster), instead of just clicking the text button and making nice beveled, outlined, vector text? Why does the whole program close down immediately if I close one of the tool child windows to get it out of the way? Why are half the filter previews broken? They still haven't added CYMK color space, with the usual OSS excuse 'you don't need that anyways', making unsuitable for most work. The world doesn't run on RGB colorspace.

The whole project is a big steaming turd. You have to do so much work to get subpar results, if you can even get the results you want at all. It's very rare to find a program that manages to fail in every key area, making it totally useless for it's intended purpose, even after ten years of development.

So you know you are a crappy programmer when you work on GIMP.

Twitter :: DeviantArt

Dmytry

1,151

March 09, 2009 05:48 AM

Quote:Original post by Daaark
Sorry guys. Anyone working on GIMP should hang their head in shame. There are only 3 reasons to like GIMP

1) You only know how to make programmer art
2) You've never used a real paint program
3) You are an OSS zealot who argues with loyalty instead of common sense

Why doesn't right click draw with my background color instead of opening up a useless context menu? Why doesn't the mouse wheel zoom instead of a useless vertical scroll (when I can get that by clicking in the middle button anyways, and scroll in any direction). Why do I need a 35 step tutorial to make outlined text (after converting to raster), instead of just clicking the text button and making nice beveled, outlined, vector text?

Why does the whole program close down immediately if I close one of the tool child windows to get it out of the way? Why are half the filter previews broken? They still haven't added CYMK color space, with the usual OSS excuse 'you don't need that anyways', making unsuitable for most work. The world doesn't run on RGB colorspace.

The whole project is a big steaming turd. You have to do so much work to get subpar results, if you can even get the results you want at all. It's very rare to find a program that manages to fail in every key area, making it totally useless for it's intended purpose, even after ten years of development.

So you know you are a crappy programmer when you work on GIMP.

did you ever write anything that is used by even 1/100 of the number of people using gimp?
All that you wrote about (except CYMK which is naturally "if you need a lot of features, thats going to cost money, go buy photoshop") is minor usability issues which have precisely nothing to do with programming. If you would have made a case that gimp developers suck at usability, I might even have agreed to some extent (but then, pretty much all programmers suck at user interfaces).

Lemme ask you straight. What program are you using for photo manipulation? (you sound awful lot like pirate photoshop users trying to justify piracy of photoshop as opposed to use of free alternative)

Hodgman

52,718

March 09, 2009 05:50 AM

Quote:Original post by Cyber_Cactus
You are a crappy programmer when you write over 10,000 lines of code without adding any comments.

You are a crappy programmer when you write over 10,000 lines of code and feel the need to comment every second line.

++i;// increment the counter

. 22 Racing Series .

Winegums

286

March 09, 2009 06:00 AM

You know you're a crappy programmer when....

(*) You've spent the last week writing 1000 lines of code...and none of it is on the task you were given.

(*) You think you've written a fully functioning engine by yourself. This was a strange phenomena I observed while at university...at least one or two people at any given time were writing an engine...which infact was just a wrapper for their favourtie graphics API. Typically the people who did this had never actually used an engine.

Zipster

2,420

March 09, 2009 06:04 AM

Quote:Original post by Winegums
(*) You've spent the last week writing 1000 lines of code...and none of it is on the task you were given.

Wait, doesn't that make you a fired programmer? [wink]

owl

376

March 09, 2009 06:18 AM

Quote:Original post by Hodgman
Quote:Original post by Cyber_Cactus
You are a crappy programmer when you write over 10,000 lines of code without adding any comments.
You are a crappy programmer when you write over 10,000 lines of code and feel the need to comment every second line.*** Source Snippet Removed ***

/****************************************************** Modified by Mary on dd/mm/yyyy****************************************************/++i;/****************************************************** End of modified by Mary on dd/mm/yyyy****************************************************/

I expent an entire day removing comments like that from a 10 years old VB project I'm currently working on.

[size="2"]I like the Walrus best.

Winegums

286

March 09, 2009 06:35 AM

Quote:Original post by Zipster
Quote:Original post by Winegums
(*) You've spent the last week writing 1000 lines of code...and none of it is on the task you were given.

Wait, doesn't that make you a fired programmer? [wink]

if you're working in a company with a supply of good programmers who know your slightly convoluted engine, which doesn't have a hiring freeze on, and which doesn't have projects it's massivley behind on...maybe.

Going into The Real World was a significant eye-opener for me. I used to think that programmers were grouped into two types:

Good
Know and are proficient in the API/Platform/language/field they work in.

Bad
!Good

Unfortunatley people who I classified as 'good' can be terrible if left unchecked...I've seen programmers go tearing into a system that their code relies on since it "wasn't written properly, so I redid it".

Dmytry

1,151

March 09, 2009 06:37 AM

Quote:Original post by owl
Quote:Original post by Hodgman
Quote:Original post by Cyber_Cactus
You are a crappy programmer when you write over 10,000 lines of code without adding any comments.
You are a crappy programmer when you write over 10,000 lines of code and feel the need to comment every second line.*** Source Snippet Removed ***

*** Source Snippet Removed ***

I expent an entire day removing comments like that from a 10 years old VB project I'm currently working on.

lol, definite case of someone not knowing how to use version control. Admittedly though if I ever modify unfamiliar code, I do add temporary "modified by dmytry for feature X" comments (when using version control) which I later remove. Not everyone has IDE that displays commits, and if i'm asking regular developer to look if my changes are ok, I prefer when it is easy to see the changes in context.

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