Developing Programmers .com

I recently noticed this FAQ by Bjarne Stroustrup himself on various aspects of why C++ is designed the way it is, how to get the most out of it in various common situations, and how Stroustrup responds to questions about features from other languages like Java and C#. If you use C++ at all, or [...]

I’ve been plugging some of Joel Spolsky’s articles about coding recently because he has a fair bit of experience and his advice, although not suited to every situation, is generally good and deserving of serious consideration. I’ve pointed out articles from Joel on Software such as “Making Wrong Code Look Wrong“, and the points Joel [...]

In his article, “Making Wrong Code Look Wrong”, Joel discusses the idea that besides having some style, whatever it might be, a key to good programming is to engineer the conventions for a project so that wrong things look wrong. This can be done by organizing code so that the main consequences of a line of code, and the semantics of the line of code, are visible locally, without having to search around the program to see what’s really going on.

Well not really. Today I’m exploring what kinds of rants experienced programmers have when they start working with someone new. There are a few reasons to do this and none are intended to offend. The main reason is that there are a few problems common to most new work places which can be identified and explored. This will make our readers at least fore-warned, and possibly arm them with ways to mitigate frustrations both from the perspective of a new programmer and also from the perspective of a team leader bringing someone new into a project.

Working in a group, people’s preferred styles come into conflict. Then it helps to be conscious of the purpose of styles so you can stick to what’s important rather than personal preference.