InfoWorld this week published yet another article on “The 7 deadly sins of software development”. For those who don’t care to read the ~1 page article (that’s split unless you use the “print” option that puts it all on one page), here’s the list:
- Lust – overengineering
- Gluttony – not refactoring
- Greed – cross-team competition
- Sloth – not validating input
- Wrath – no/bad comments
- Envy – no version control
- Pride – no unit testing
Spiffy. Items 1, 4, 5, and 7 are beaten to DEATH in every computer science / information systems / intro programming / advanced programming / algorithms / data structures / etc / etc class I have every attended, read about, heard about, or thought about. Why is it rehashed AGAIN by InfoWorld?
Better yet, why does an article like this appear every 9-18 months (or more!) in a major publication or on a major website (InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, arstechnica, joelonsoftware, codinghorror, etc etc)?
Is it because, as my friend Steven said they’re ‘basically new writers {“i’m fresh out of college and i know everything”} or quotas on programming articles‘? Is it because programmers are really THAT lazy? Or that bad? Or that inconsiderate? Or that management hasn’t encouraged a culture of excellence and teamwork? Yes, shipping IS a feature. It’s really important. So is having developers who care about their work – and who care for their fellow workers who will have to look at / modify / care for / clean their work later.
Lack of version control will bite you HARD everytime you don’t use it (don’t ask how I know – call it a Bad Experience™). Competing with other teams is just dumb: you’re all supposed to be working for the same company, the same end goal, and, ultimately, the same customers who will eventually pay for whatever it is you’re writing (I’ll relate another moderately-humorous anecdote on that another time).
If developers really are that bad, or their employers are bad enough to not help/fix behavior, then we’re all in a lot of trouble. And if they’re not – then it must just be that it was a slow week, so somebody thought they’d regurgitate and modify the same thing we’ve all heard hundreds of times.
ironically – the joelonsoftware.com article referenced in the article actually proposes no unit testing (though, admittedly, only in the context of the “duct tape programmer”)
IMO: We don’t have very good writers in the tech development field. Or, atleast we don’t have an independent voice that can stand out. Its rather annoying. One potential cause of this is that the people that could easily make these calls are busy writing books and crafting arguments. Another potential possibility that that the authors never do well enough to gain credibility and “star status” enough to be protective of their reputation.nnn Shame you didn’t look into the author’s previous work. Hes an application reviewer, not a developer in the least. Hes attempted to do at least 2 “programming quizes” which ended up being nothing much meaningless trivia rather than something to be taken seriously. nTake a look at “Philosopher”‘s comment.n nhttp://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/programming-iq-test-round-2-224#talkbackn