14 July 2012

A crucial difference between good software engineers and bad programmers

When I joined another development team this week to observe them working with our favorite design consultant, I arrived in a moment when they were discussing the name of a certain class. Later on they discussed issues like class responsibilities, where to put certain methods, what to mock in a test. I was amazed not just by the well-informed discussions, but also at the actual questions they were discussing.


In other teams and at other times, the questions would be "why does this not compile"? "how do I get this to work"? "how do I do X with (technology) Y?" (instead of: "is Y a good technology to do X?")


Of course, it's the developer's job to get things done, but if we struggle too much with the low-level questions then they won't be any time for really interesting questions of design and actually doing things well.

Next time, I have to choose a team to work with, I will pay attention to this point.

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