What makes a "good" programmer?

http://www.hasemanonmobile.com/2009/08/10/what-makes-a-good-programmer/

by edw519 • 17 years ago

16 14 17 years ago

Either there's an egoistical interest in articles or this sort or all programmers out there are desperate for self-development direction. If you can answer the question "what should I do next to improve as a programmer?" you're falling into the former category. If you can't, go on a forum/mailing list and ask some programmers better than yourself to ask that question instead of written one-size-fits-all articles on the topic.

There are good articles that fall into the "what is a good programmer" category but generally these have now all already been written. What's left is just opinion and should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

edw519• 17 years ago

There are good articles that fall into the "what is a good programmer" category but generally these have now all already been written.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - US Patent Officer, 1899.

olliesaunders2• 17 years ago

Well, let me put it this way, this article isn't as good as some I've read in the past. I'd love to provide links but I couldn't remember enough about them after 5/10 minutes of searching about and decided it didn't matter that much to me anyway.

volida4• 17 years ago

you want me το believe that someone who "blows up" a linked list is a programmer? He may be able το serve other tasks but a programmer he/she is not.

rosser2• 17 years ago

You've never once, under pressure and time constraints, made a stupid, simple, oh-god-i'm-an-idiot mistake? You're a better man/woman than I.

tmikew• 17 years ago

Completely agree. I once had somebody ask me during an interview to write a binary search on the white board. Very tough in that circumstance for me, completely blew it. Interestingly that was 11 years ago, I am now the chief architect and the other fellow has been gone for years. I doubt I could today just stand up and write a binary search from scratch that was worth darn. Even though it is not that tough of a problem.

Programming in my opinion is a reading comprehension skill, solving cute little technical problems won't build large scale maintainable solutions. Even though they are fun to throw around at interviews they don't prove much. :)

volida4• 17 years ago

"under pressure and time constraints"

Isn't that the situation during a startup and some companies?

If someone is not able to use a linked list, how are you going to trust them think of/implement something new and harder?

And I never said mistakes are unacceptable.

dce• 17 years ago

The way you write "to" is blowing my mind right now.

volida4• 17 years ago

I had T9 activated and it automatically choose the Greek word.

angstrom• 17 years ago

Most people, when posed with this question, look in a mirror and write 1000 subjective words to describe themselves.

haseman2• 17 years ago

Find me an article that isn't '1000 subjective words' :-)

I actually wrote the linked article in response to all the 'this is what makes a good programmer' articles I've seen going by on Hacker News. It isn't the end-all, it's just more perspective. I'd also add that it doesn't describe me as well as I would like.

What makes a "good" programmer?

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