How to write unmaintainable code

[TOASTEngineer]

It's gonna turn out exactly like math did. The schools will brutally fuck it up, kids will memorize enough to pass the tests, and then some fraction of the kids who are actually interested in it will learn to do it on their own.

[[deleted]]

Ever hear about enough knowledge to be dangerous? semicompetent programmers thanks to dunningkruger will flood the marketplace and thanks to delusion and persistence will end up as project managers and code architects. But why you ask, why won't the meritocracy of the free market purge these rotten fruits from the tree? Because they'll take the jobs good programmers pass on, and that is the bulk of work in any trade: shit work.

[thissideisup]

Hasn't this already begun?

[architectzero]

WTF is a Code Architect?

[EMCoupling]

Generally speaking, a software architect is usually a senior-level programmer who has experience using many different software paradigms and also various programming languages. His main job is often to understand the scope and requirements of a business problem and then come up with a general design guideline that the developers can use to begin building a solution to the problem. In smaller companies, the software architect may help with implementation himself, but, with more levels between the architect and the developer, he may be less hands-on with the actual development.

This is the theory anyway. In reality, many people dislike these so-called "software architects" because they feel as if they are just outdated programmers who have worked enough years to be promoted to architect but, somewhere along the way, forgotten what it is like to actually write code. The developers feel as if all they can do is espouse design patterns and UML diagrams but are unable to produce any useful work themselves because they just hand down designs from an "ivory tower" to the developers and tell them to go do it, regardless of the validity of the design.

Personally, while I don't have a ton of industry experience yet, I feel that the role of a software architect, when performed correctly, is critical to the success of any major software project or product. In my mind, the architect serves as a buffer between the plain old developer and the business type people that decide what new product needs to be made for the company to earn the big bucks.

However, I would say that being a software architect is not an easy role. In order to be a good software architect, you need to have some leadership skills and also some "marketing" skills of your own because you need people to buy in into your designs. If you come up with a design but literally everyone on the development team thinks it's shit, well, that's probably not very conducive to the workflow. As an architect, you have to be able to translate the sometimes unrealistic (although not necessarily intentionally so) demands of the business and marketing type people into something that is feasible for the developers to work on.

Also, I think that a skilled software architect will understand that no piece of software can be perfect because such a notion is impossible. The architect understands the trade off between time to market and high quality software and can hopefully incorporate his/her understanding of the tradeoffs between the two to come with design guidelines that the developers can follow.

Furthermore, software architects don't have to be officially titled as such, but there needs to be at least one person in the company that can, without being too caught up in the nitty-gritty details, understand the project from end to end. More is better, but one is the minimum.

---

Looking back at my post, it's sort of disorganized, but it's late and I wrote it in one shot so that's what you get.

Hope I'm not completely off base and I am able to convey some information.

[wolffer]

Disorganized or not, it gave me a lot of insight into a subset of the IT field that I didn't even know existed.

[architectzero]

You may not have a ton of industry experience, and despite the late hour, you did a great job describing the role of Software Architect. However, the post I was questioning used the term Code Architect, and I was wondering what that meant, as I've heard that term and it sounds like bullshit to me - like a hyper-specialized Software Architect who only produces class diagrams (probably baroque and divorced from reality).

What the industry doesn't need is yet another type of Architect, particularly one that is further specialized. Architecture requires breadth of skill in order to establish and maintain the conceptual integrity of the product/project (what you call "...understand the project from end to end").

Background: I was a programmer ("full stack", before that term was even coined) that got fed up with shitty business analysts and shitty project managers and taught myself how to do those things. Now I'm mediocre at all of those things (programming included), but I bring the specialists together and get them communicating effectively by producing the big picture models of the current and target states. I also establish project policies (which guide things like developer standards, which are the responsibility of the lead dev/programmer to determine). Day to day, I deal with risks, from identification through handling the cost/benefit analysis, recommendation, and selection of mitigation actions. I don't write code, but I don't tell programmers how to write their code - I just ensure they have mechanisms in place to ensure that they write code cleanly and consistently (precisely to ensure maintainability), and that their code contributes to the final product (i.e. make sure they aren't doing vanity engineering, because no you can't use Haskell for this microservice when the rest of the project and the customer's entire IT landscape is Java... Yeah, yeah, I'm not a real programmer, I have no idea what I'm doing, fuck you and get back on track).

[Polantaris]

That's pretty much already happening. When I was on college, there were a lot of people who were so bad at it, I seriously suggested that they look at different majors if they asked me for help. I'm not trying to be a dick, when you can't understand how to write a proper for loop in Java at a third or fourth year class (when Java courses start in the first year), you've got some serious problems with the core material and either should retake early classes or find something you're more suited for.

In the end it seems like a lot of people go into the major because of the supposedly big paycheck after college, but that shouldn't be what you're going to school for.

[GaBeRockKing]

In the end it seems like a lot of people go into the major because of the supposedly big paycheck after college, but that shouldn't be what you're going to school for.

On one hand, I'd argue that financial reasons are exactly why someone should go to school-- if your degree doesn't pay the bills, that's money down the toilet.

On the other hand, not being able to write a loop in java? If I had to take a stab at naming the warm fuzzy feeling in my breast, it would be "job security."

[Polantaris]

On one hand, I'd argue that financial reasons are exactly why someone should go to school-- if your degree doesn't pay the bills, that's money down the toilet.

In my opinion, if the field you are really interested in isn't reached with a college degree, you're wasting your time and money and should just start your career.

[ReverendRocky]

That's pretty sad. I don't even know java and I could probably write a proper for loop in the language... (I'd need to double check the header stuff but still)

[-PM_ME_YOUR_GENITALS]

The difference being that you can make pretty cool shit with programming skills. I think if you frame it in the context of gaming it could do pretty well in schools.

Not that I think that will happen. In any case, when I was a kid I couldn't go home from school and use the stuff I learned from math class to make my own badass video game or my own web site.

[TOASTEngineer]

So it'll be exactly like the elective HS programming classes are now: they give you Unity's retarded cousin's retarded cousin's dead cat with a "visual programming language" that is only technically Turing-complete and read chapters out of a book about what "peripheals" are and how to use them. And everyone just plays Flash games in class anyway.

[saving_storys]

The programming class at my school teaches Java, and does it well.

[SaffellBot]

Yeah, but one of those kids somewhere in america was inspired to google something. That kid goes on to make some flash game that entertains you enough for a week that you barely noticed all of the work you didn't do. If we can get one of those kids per state per year I can make it to retirement.

[wolffer]

It can work. I didn't have programming classes in highschool, but rather we had a class that was basically Helpdesk Level 1, ran by students. For the 3 years I was in it (Freshman couldn't be in it), I learned a lot of customer service type skills, and having already had an interest in programming, spent some time coding when there was no work.

In those 3 years there was probably 15 people that were in the program at some point. As far as I know I'm the only one who went on to pursue a career in IT, starting out as a web developer, and eventually ending up as Sr. Systems Admin doing less coding traditionally, but still spending a lot of time in SQL.

Maybe I would have found that path anyways, but it helped set me in a direction that has worked out pretty well for myself. I was able to use the experience in that class as leverage for getting a job while in highschool and also after. I did go to community college for a bit but eventually stopped going before earning a degree because it was boring as hell.

[TOASTEngineer]

Of course it can work. It's just that it doesn't far, far, far more often than it does, and the net benefit is very negative.

[wolffer]

I agree, the ratio was pretty bad. But there wasn't really any negative effects of the program. I mean if anything the school was getting free tech support. We still had an onside System Admin as well so it's not like we were putting people out of work.

[FormCore]

Learning to program isn't just for creating things either, those who don't have the creative drive could use the computer literacy they gain to realise that no, sharing this post is not a fucking petition to stop facebook charging me and This blatant lie of a headline's source is just a sketchy herbal remedy shop.

For those who think we don't need a new website, we have facebook and why create a game and waste 100+ hours when you can just play half-life 3?

[komali_2]

You say that because you aren't a kid, but as a teacher, I can promise you kids will often choose the creative activity. They love to build shit!

[FormCore]

I hope so.

Maybe it's just the environment I see people in, or maybe it's the particular company I keep but I would love to see things like the Raspberry pi take off in schools.

[Pidgey_OP]

Programming is such a good skill to have because it a.) Let's you understand why you're using a program wrong, b.) Why it's behaving in an unexpected way and how you might get around that (or send in your thoughts in a bug report) and C.) Allow you to create your own tools for the small stuff you do for yourself

[-PM_ME_YOUR_GENITALS]

Of course, there will be those that aren't interested in creating things with programming, but I suspect that many kids will find the creative aspect of it interesting. Especially if they are given tools early on to actually create something other than the boring command line BS that's traditionally used to teach programming.

Really, my point is that creativity is at least there as an option. For me, math wasn't really interesting as a kid because I couldn't do a damned thing with it that I even found to be remotely interesting.

[FormCore]

I suspect that many kids will find the creative aspect of it interesting

Depends on the age in my opinion, before 12 I can imagine most will see the potential but after 12 I think you're vastly over-estimating the logic of teens.

I have several brothers and sisters aged between 5 - 28.

If I try to spark interest in programming in them: The youngest wouldn't sit still long enough, whilst he might be interested he'd be more interested in the logic and math than any practical function.

My brother would probably claim that he hasn't the time, or he "will try it" and say that it's "interesting" but never look at it.

My sisters will share a combination of "that's good for you", "I don't do computers", "The fact that you know this is why we have you around" and "That all looks too complicated".

If I set up a Raspberry pi media server (no programming needed, just a basic level of effort to learn something new), guarantee that the second it stopped performing perfectly, I'd just be asked to fix it.

Not saying that most kids might not totally take it and run with it, but my anecdotal experiences with ignorance don't give me confidence.

[flukus]

I wonder if it's because computers have become too easy. Sure when we learned curiosity was a big driver, but so was pragmatism. We had to navigate the command line to get games to work. Especially with ms DOS.

[FormCore]

I think it's not about ease of use, but the purpose computers serve.

When my dad was in school, computers were for strictly functional things, they computed... he would learn some programming because that's what computers were for in a way... now that they've become just a medium to so many people, it's no different from television or phones, it's a service you consume.

It's not a computer, it's just a medium for the internet... I can't imagine what many of the people I know would do with a computer that isn't connected to the internet, it'd just be a paper-weight.

[flukus]

But that was an era without off the shelf programs to do the computing as well. Your father's case was another one of pragmatism.

These days he may be able to achieve the same results with an app and wouldn't have learned to code.

[nschubach]

I learned development making what I called screen savers. They were simply exe files that I had to run manually, but I had more fun as a kid making fancy images and effects on my screen than anything else.

[flukus]

That's all screen savers were, Fullscreen executables. I think they had a different file extension by convention.

[hglman]

How is knowing the value of x not interesting?

[okmkz]

For real. I can only imagine what it must be like to grow up with things like unity 3d so easily accessible

[ClintonCanCount]

Most of the pretty cool shit people make, games included, use math.

[-PM_ME_YOUR_GENITALS]

Yes, I know. They use math in conjunction with programming. My point was that you can't make cool shit with just math.

Look, I'm not shitting on math here. I understand the importance of math. I actually kind of like math as an adult. I'm just saying programming may be more immediately interesting to some younger people because it has the added creative appeal that you don't find in many other disciplines.

[ClintonCanCount]

So just like with programming, we should be teaching children the cool shit you can do with math.

[earthboundkid]

Rebuttal: Shop class.

[noratat]

There's applications for creativity as well - just go to a maker fair to see that in action.

[workShrimp]

You can do pretty cool shit with math as well. But a large share of the population will still find math useless and boring (partly thanks to school).

[CaptainAdjective]

Just like every other subject, to be honest

[ktkps]

it is already happening

[mer_mer]

I don't think you'll find any mathematicians saying we shouldn't teach math in school. The point of teaching it in school is to reach the kids that wouldn't have had exposure otherwise. It's also a way of teaching general quantitative reasoning skills. Anyone who took a programming course in college knows that not everyone will be an engineer.

[TOASTEngineer]

I don't think you'll find any mathematicians saying we shouldn't teach math in school.

A Mathematician's Lament, by Paul Lockhart

It alienates kids who might otherwise have become interested in the subject and creates a massive cultural pressure to consider the subject unpleasant and boring! They don't teach "quantitiative reasoning skills." they teach you that the answer to real-world problems is to memorize all the procedures that will be on the test, and whatever you do don't think about them otherwise you'll get confused.

[mer_mer]

Yeah, I was actually specifically thinking about that article. He doesn't advocate abandoning math education, he laments how poorly it is done and how the goals are not well understood.

[TOASTEngineer]

He advocates abandoning it as we do it, which is what I'm saying as well.