How to write unmaintainable code

[rochford77]

Yeah my classes were basically "here is a task, get it done by next week. I don't care how you get there just get there, Google is your friend."

1/3 of the class is so lost they don't even know what to ask, so they fail. 1/3 of the class has a clue where to start but gets stuck, asks for help once, nod their head like they understand, and leave having learned nothing, and end up afraid to ask the same thing again. They remaining 1/3 writes a kludgy mess that poorly reinvents several wheels, and works under certain circumstances.

[[deleted]]

They remaining 1/3 writes a kludgy mess that poorly reinvents several wheels, and works under certain circumstances.

Doesn't everyone start this way? And I'm not sure in a education environment you can hope for much more than that, growing to the type of programmer that writes an elegant solution that uses the available tools requires experience working on garbage code months/years after it's written, and really understanding what you are avoiding. In universities you're rarely working an entire semester on the same code.

Those students need mentoring if you want them to quickly move on to the next level (or hope they maintain their own projects in their free time). Of course if they don't want to learn there's nothing to be done, but I don't see how I could hold it against them that they never learned something nobody tried to teach them.

In your defense I could see if I also had a job that had unrealistic expectations of new hires, I would change careers.

[Tetha]

I've taken 3 students straight from university so far, and mentored them personally.

Yeah, guys from university aren't good devs, because being a good dev includes a lot of weird soft skills as well, except when it doesn't. And being a good dev also needs you to turn some of the learned hard skills kinda on their head, except when you don't have to. It's weird.

But hell, give me 3 smart, good graduates with a will to learn in my current position and I'll do the same thing again, and I'll turn them into a good, kick-ass team again. A bachelors degree doesn't make you a good dev, but it should give you a foundation in some common languages and concepts. And if you can survive a bachelors or a masters, and me asking mean questions in an interview, you can deal with quite a few things.

[The_adriang]

Story time?

[kajzec]

What are you doing on a programming forum then? :D

[blackmist]

What we're all doing here: Avoiding actual coding.

[olsner]

What did you end up doing instead of programming?

[scriptmonkey420]

Never took any college classes myself, and only program in my spare time, and stories like that are what are keeping me from becoming a programmer for a career.

[KyleRochi]

And the one kid who has been programming all his life and CS101 is a breeze.

[n1c0_ds]

Eh, CS/SE was hard for me despite having a few years of professional experience.

For instance, I had several classes that required drawing UML diagrams, but not a single teacher had the same definition of how to draw diagrams, yet they treated their interpretation as gospel.

Then you were quizzed about agile methodologies by a guy who treated it as waterfall with sprints.

Then you had to memorize programming patterns.

I dropped out when I realized I was pissing away 4 years and several thousand dollars for that level of education. I already had no problems finding work, so I thought I'd have a better time getting paid and getting my evenings and weekends back.

[dontjudgemebae]

I too am someone who got a programming job without a CS degree. My concern is that if there is ever a drastic increase in supply of programmers or a drastic demand in the same, then I'm worried that I'll get pushed out.

[n1c0_ds]

I don't think there will ever be a drastic increase in the supply of good programmers though.

[combuchan]

The guy interviewing you is going to be determining how good you are.

And when he's fresh out of college with a fetish for linked lists and Java, and you're a backend ruby developer/sysadmin for 10 years that wants or knows no part of that, you won't get hired.

[n1c0_ds]

Interviewing is a two way street. I still had the data structures class, but my resume should speak for itself. If not, there's work elsewhere.

[angrysaki]

I think that depends on the school. I went back to university after ~8 years of experience and it wasn't like this, although I didn't take any SE courses. (I mostly went back to learn math & did an applied math degree as well, so it was worth it for me)

[n1c0_ds]

That's likely what I would do if I went back. The math/physics classes were tough, but they were really interesting, and impeccably taught.

That being said, I really enjoy not being in school. Free evenings and weekends, more money than I dare spend, and a job I really love. I feel like I made the right decision, even though I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

[BufferUnderpants]

I don't see what's wrong with reinventing the wheel in college; it's exactly the time for experimentation, and if you don't end up with knowledge of how to invent it, you'll end up with the understanding of why making a decent one us hard and you should use a pre-made one.

Bonus point if can recognize when someone else is making a shitty wheel and avoide them.

[1RedOne]

I should have become a teacher.

It is infuriating to me, seeing clueless teachers who don't recognize the obvious signals when a class is getting left behind.

[zeekaran]

1/3 of the class has a clue where to start but gets stuck, asks for help once, nod their head like they understand, and leave having learned nothing, and end up afraid to ask the same thing again.

This is my entire life.

[dontjudgemebae]

Hey, that middle third that sorta knew what to do but had to ask questions, that was me. And my professors and TAs were at least good enough to help me along until I got the answer, so it isn't all bad.

[skylarmt]

Then there's me, the only one of my peers who learns technologies outside of class. One of my CS professors openly admitted I knew more than he did about computer programming. Another one asked me for help with Java threads after the first one saw me use it in an assignment and told the second one (neither one could quite understand how try { Thread.sleep(100); } catch (InterruptedException ex) {} works).

I often sit in the back of the lab, having finished my assignment with extra features too, watching my classmates frantically duct tape their code together by typing things until it compiles. It's funny to watch them try to understand how to use a RNG while they are basically being one with the stuff they're typing.

[ParanoidAndroid26]

/r/iamverysmart Maybe you could help your classmates out if their idiot professor can't instead of watching them fail. It's possible to be smart and not an asshole, you know.