Lazycoder

Why can’t anyone code in .NET?

Why can’t anyone code in .NET?

The real answer here is Microsoft standard answer #1, “It depends”. As in, “It depends on what you mean by ‘can’t code’”. There aren’t any objective standards out there for what constitutes “good code” and there are plenty of programming divas ready to rip into everything from your bracket placement to your choice of flow control structures if you make your code available.

This issue isn’t new. There is always someone bemoaning the lack of “good coders” out there. They usually discover this when they start interviewing people. I wrote a short article about it a while back to try and start defining what maked a person a “good coder” (e.g. “ub3r haxx0r”) to me. Following standards is a good start, but it doesn’t really tell me anything since standards from person to person and company to company. If you come in to and interview with me talking about how “hungarian notation should be avoided because the IDE will tell you the type if you hover over the var name”, I immediately think less of you as a coder because you’re dependant upon the tool. What happens I need you to write some code in a language that doesn’t support that VS IDE feature? What happens if I have to work on some of your code at a hot client site when money is being lost while the system is down and I don’t have time to install Visual Studio or IntelliJ?

If you can’t remember the exact syntax for a language I’ll be OK with that. My background is in the physical sciences where there are so many facts that you can’t possibly memorize them all. Hell, I constantly have to look up the exact syntax for lots of statements. If you can’t sketch out your algorithm using pseudo-code on a whiteboard, I’ll be less impressed.

When it comes to complaining about how people code, I think some examples of what the person does and doesn’t like would be handy. We can end up writing a virtual hyperlinked guide to becoming a better coder.