[rkw]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I agree - proper commenting, naming of variables, structures, subroutines, and documentation is key to making software useable/reusable.

Exactly and well stated. Like you & others in this thread I'm a tri-decade+ developer as well as network engineer. I've served my time as an IT Director as well.

COding & documentation conventions are still, in this "modern" era, very neglected, almost taken for granted. On one side you end up with the "business major" sorts who do not understand why it takes 3-5x longer to design, document and debug (never done but it is part of it all) an app as it does to do the actual coding.


Explaining to a client/boss that the initial pseudo-code/outline is where the time needs to be spent. If this is done apps not only meet deadlines easily they also tend to be far easier to debug, usually with less time need for debugging.

Coders have always wanted to just code. To flight coders, even developers, already see at minimum the entire module they've been given to code or even the entire project in their head. You know we actually see the code...heck when in college for both my math and CS degrees I would often dream solutions to equations or code whole modules in a night or two of sleep.

But becoming a developer is about not only team work but the ability to organize & compartmentalize all the needed tasked to bring an app to completion. I agree that those with poor communication skills are not good "developers" but can be fine as coders. I consider a developer as one who can conceptualize, design then code an app. Coders are the freaks who live simply to write code. I've known and used some amazing coders who could bang out error free code at an amazing rate but had zero ability to communicate with others let alone what their code was supposed to do and what it needed. I've also found coders who could write code that somehow worked but was so inelegant and downright schizoid as to be pointless. I prefer the former...as the latter rarely bath and tend to prefer working in mom's basement.

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's really where the difference lies between professional programmers and amateur hobbyists. Hobbyists may be (and often are) good coders, but coding only forms a small part of what professional programmers actually do.

Not sure I am comfy with your definition here.

The ability to design, document, code and implement a programmatic solution in a cogent fashion does not make one a professional anymore than the ability to properly repair a toilet makes one a professional plumber. A professional is one who undertakes a task and makes it work then rolls with the changes, unforeseen dead ends or other unexpected events during the development and implementation phases of an app's life cycle.

But I do get what you are trying to say here...a pro does these things as business-as-usual manner rather than some sort of forced-march held at gun-point. A pro also is one who can act in either a lead or subordinate role. Basically pro's act like "they've been there before".

I don't believe in the idea of a "professional" or "amateur" in regard to classifying a developer. To me the difference is simply if one does it to earn a living. Rather I differentiate into "developer/designers" vs. "pure coders" vs. plain old hacks who don't have the discipline to accept deadlines, design changes and coding conventions. The latter are the ones who give the good developers a bad name.

I have held a similar discussion with a math prof because I was a double major in math/CS. He was a mathematician at Lawrence-Livermore who retired from to teach. In class one day we got into the importance of math skills in relation to programming. He felt it was not necessary to even get through the first 3-semesters of calculus. I disagreed with an explanation...my argument was and still is both areas need the same fundamental skill. That skill is problem solving using an algebra of some sort to develop results in the defined solution space. Meaning simply that one needs to be a problem solver who can keep organized. I further feel while one does not need to be an expert mathematician but needs to be able to function. I consider commonly understood algebraic systems to simply be a type of programming language used to take data, grind and crunch on it then spit out a solution defined by that very algebraic system.

I suppose written communication tools form just another algebra with it's corresponding solution space. So the same argument would seem to apply. Meaning perhaps I do agree that one does need to be able to communicate to truly be a developer. Perhaps it is even a broader brush here. If you cannot communicate well it's a lot tougher to succeed. It is just there are different forms of communication in which we each excel. Still we all need to at minimum be familiar with one area and solid to expert in the other areas. BTW, I like the obvious tie-in to being a well rounded reader as a necessary tool in our communications toolkit.

I've done this long enough to know I am NOT an adept technical writer but I considered a rather good developer and mathematician. Plus my spelling is horrid and I am mildly numerically-dyslexic so adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing can be an adventure for me as well as it was a nightmare for my profs in the college days.