I changed the subject as I feel we are moving away from the topic. On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 12:11 PM, Roy Gardiner <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote: > My question was general, perhaps I'll try again -- is it easy for a bad > programmer to write overly complicated code? Do you mean in general or specifically in Ruby vs. other programming languages? Concluding from code I have seen I would say it is easy for bad programmers to write overly complicated code - regardless of language. It may be a tad less easy in Ruby as the syntax is pretty clean and it is more difficult to produce unreadable code just by doing syntax tricks. Kind regards robert
Roy G. (roy-gardiner)
on 2013-10-24 12:59
Bad programmers - write 'tight' code. They think that fewer keystrokes = good - think their problem is 'complex' (never 'complicated') and thus must have a complex solution -- they don't try to simplify. - deliberately try out as many new features as they can, in live code, to improve their own knowledge and to show off - choose the difficult,complicated (but of course 'more comprehensive' or 'more elegant')way over the easy, simple way of doing anything. what I fear is that the variety of Ruby -- there seem to be any number of ways of doing the simplest things -- may encourage them.
Joel P. (virtuoso)
on 2013-10-24 13:25
I certainly wrote overly complex and repetitive code when learning Ruby. Not writing methods, writing all code in main, not using OO... sometimes you have to make mistakes to fully understand the benefits of doing things properly.
on 2013-10-24 14:49
Subject: Is it easy for a bad programmer to write overly complicated code? (was: Re: Normal For Loop) Date: gio 24 ott 13 12:59:40 +0200 Sorry for the delay! Quoting Roy Gardiner (lists@ruby-forum.com): > Bad programmers <snip> > - deliberately try out as many new features as they can, in live code, > to improve their own knowledge and to show off You are putting two opposite concepts in the same basket. To show off is of course bad. To improve one's knowledge is not only a good thing - it is one of the fundamental reasons why we are here on this planet. The evil here is on the part of corporate employers, who couldn't care less about the personal evolution of the programmers they employ, and are after the fundamentally flawed holy grail of programmers-as-commodity. You burn one, you get a new one from the drawer. These employers are afraid of hiring people who are brighter than they are, and thus the code that is produced by their people is unescapably mediocre. Carlo
Roy G. (roy-gardiner)
on 2013-10-24 15:55
Carlo E. Prelz wrote in post #1125499: > Subject: Is it easy for a bad programmer to write overly complicated > code? (was: Re: Normal For Loop) > Date: gio 24 ott 13 12:59:40 +0200 > Sorry for the delay! > > Quoting Roy Gardiner (lists@ruby-forum.com): > >> Bad programmers > > <snip> > >> - deliberately try out as many new features as they can, in live code, >> to improve their own knowledge and to show off > > You are putting two opposite concepts in the same basket. To show off > is of course bad. To improve one's knowledge is not only a good thing > - it is one of the fundamental reasons why we are here on this > planet. I chose my words carefully :-) it's why I said 'live code'. Anyone writing anything other than the simplest, easiest code to solve a problem is (in my book anyway) a bad programmer. I have known any number to 'bend' a solution to fit code they want to write. > The evil here is on the part of corporate employers, who couldn't care > less about the personal evolution of the programmers they employ, and > are after the fundamentally flawed holy grail of > programmers-as-commodity. You burn one, you get a new one from the > drawer. A different discussion indeed...! > These employers are afraid of hiring people who are brighter than they > are, and thus the code that is produced by their people is unescapably > mediocre. > > Carlo People who won't hire others brighter than themselves in any field are 2nd rate, as you say. It's an infallible measure, IMO.
on 2013-10-24 16:15
Subject: Re: Is it easy for a bad programmer to write overly complicated code? (was: Re: Normal For Loop) Date: gio 24 ott 13 03:55:47 +0200 Quoting Roy Gardiner (lists@ruby-forum.com): > I chose my words carefully :-) it's why I said 'live code'. Anyone > writing anything other than the simplest, easiest code to solve a > problem is (in my book anyway) a bad programmer. I have known any > number to 'bend' a solution to fit code they want to write. It becomes soon evident to anybody who cares for his/her code that simple, linear (although *not* easy, at least concept-wise) code cuts the cake much better than uselessly complex code. I reacted to your usage of showing off and improving one's knowledge as comparable concepts. I believe these two attitudes produce widely different results. If you consider coding as craftsmanship, the first attitude is detrimental to code quality, while the second one is instrumental to code quality. I want to add that 'easy' code can only solve elementary, or extensively explored problems. At the point when you can use 'easy' code, you are very close to the point where you can use code generators as well. Carlo
Roy G. (roy-gardiner)
on 2013-10-24 16:30
Carlo E. Prelz wrote in post #1125516: > I reacted to your > usage of showing off and improving one's knowledge as comparable > concepts. I believe these two attitudes produce widely different > results. If you consider coding as craftsmanship, the first attitude > is detrimental to code quality, while the second one is instrumental > to code quality. I stand by the idea that putting into production more complex code than needed just to improve one's knowledge *is* showing off -- and I'm sure you've seen any number of people do it.
on 2013-10-24 16:43
Subject: Re: Is it easy for a bad programmer to write overly complicated code? (was: Re: Normal For Loop) Date: gio 24 ott 13 04:30:33 +0200 Quoting Roy Gardiner (lists@ruby-forum.com): > I stand by the idea that putting into production more complex code than > needed just to improve one's knowledge *is* showing off -- and I'm sure > you've seen any number of people do it. No. Either you do one thing, or you do the other. Notice the difference: one thing is to write code and somehow improve one's knowledge as a more or less welcome side effect. Another thing is to focus one's effort on improving one's knowledge. In the first case, it may well be that you are motivated by pride (showing-off, or other). In the second one, you are not. It is an aspect of the duality Constructiveness|Destructiveness. Quite a fundamental one. Carlo
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 12:59 PM, Roy Gardiner <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote: > Bad programmers > what I fear is that the variety of Ruby -- there seem to be any number > of ways of doing the simplest things -- may encourage them. In Ruby land we usually consider TMTOWTDI to be a good thing. Luckily many of the multiple ways will be readable because of Ruby's API design and clean syntax. I wouldn't worry too much about this. If you do, then just pick another language with which you feel more comfortable. Kind regards robert
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 4:14 PM, Carlo E. Prelz <fluido@fluido.as> wrote: > I want to add that 'easy' code can only solve elementary, or > extensively explored problems. At the point when you can use 'easy' > code, you are very close to the point where you can use code > generators as well. Not sure I agree here. If a method can be written with simple straight forward code that just means that the developer has done a good job at structuring design and code in a manner that one class / method / function does one thing properly. I doubt that process can be automated. Plus: Ruby is so expressive that the description of requirements for the code generator is probably not shorter than the Ruby code itself. "I want all items with price higher than $10" is about as complex as "items.select {|it| it.price > 10}". So why generate if you can write the Ruby down with the same effort? Kind regards robert
on 2013-10-24 19:18
Subject: Re: Is it easy for a bad programmer to write overly complicated code? (was: Re: Normal For Loop) Date: gio 24 ott 13 06:01:10 +0200 Quoting Robert Klemme (shortcutter@googlemail.com): > Plus: Ruby is so expressive that the description of requirements for > the code generator is probably not shorter than the Ruby code itself. > "I want all items with price higher than $10" is about as complex as > "items.select {|it| it.price > 10}". So why generate if you can write > the Ruby down with the same effort? When I mention code generators, I mean something that can be operated without the help of a programmer. For you and me, the complexity of your two examples is comparable. A non-programmer, on the other side, will find the meaning of the first example quite obvious, while the second example may give the impression of being a meaningless jumble of characters. Carlo
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 7:18 PM, Carlo E. Prelz <fluido@fluido.as> wrote: > > When I mention code generators, I mean something that can be operated > without the help of a programmer. For you and me, the complexity of > your two examples is comparable. A non-programmer, on the other side, > will find the meaning of the first example quite obvious, while the > second example may give the impression of being a meaningless jumble > of characters. Now, this is an interesting question: how formal would an input for a code generator have to be? Considering current state of affairs of speech recognition and AI I'd guess that you need at least some formalism. Well, unless of course you can afford "Deep Thought" or other non fictional supercomputers (what was the name of this IBM thingy which won that quiz show again?). Kind regards robert
on 2013-10-24 22:33
Deep Blue was the chess computer Watson was the system that competed in Jeopardy
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 PM, Chris Hulan <chris.hulan@gmail.com> wrote: > Deep Blue was the chess computer > > Watson was the system that competed in Jeopardy Watson was the one I had in mind. Thanks, Chris and Joel! Kind regards robert
Roy G. (roy-gardiner)
on 2013-10-25 17:27
Robert Klemme wrote in post #1125550: > On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 7:18 PM, Carlo E. Prelz <fluido@fluido.as> > wrote: >> >> When I mention code generators, I mean something that can be operated >> without the help of a programmer. > > Now, this is an interesting question: how formal would an input for a > code generator have to be? > robert Bearing in mind that the first one was COBOL, track record not looking good so far... :-)
On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 5:59 AM, Roy Gardiner <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote: > what I fear is that the variety of Ruby -- there seem to be any number > of ways of doing the simplest things -- may encourage them. > > -- > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. Let us suppose for the moment that all that is true. What do you intend to do about it? To me, none of the conditions you specified above are specific to Ruby, or really any other language that I know. What you are describing sounds more like a way some people approach learning in general. It is a general truism that you have to be poor at something before you can excel at something. In the Ruby world, like no other I've encountered, there is a strong emphasis on testing, and testing before development, and the concept of refactoring early and often. I know this is not born out in practice everywhere, especially in programming shops that happen to be doing Ruby, and there's oceans of poorly written and designed Ruby code out there, yet I'm still of the opinion that rubyists are more in tune with the craft of programming than other cultures around other languages. Sturgeon's Law will hold, regardless.
Roy G. (roy-gardiner)
on 2013-10-25 18:27
Goodness me, you seem to think I'm attacking Ruby. I'm not. I was trawling (not, I hope, trolling) for opinion on a language design feature. I didn't mean to offend you, I apologise.
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 11:27 AM, Roy Gardiner <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote: > Goodness me, you seem to think I'm attacking Ruby. I'm not. I was > trawling (not, I hope, trolling) for opinion on a language design > feature. I didn't mean to offend you, I apologise. Oh, no, not defending Ruby. The set of assertions you make about bad programmers, though, is the characteristics of someone learning how to become a better programmer, given sufficient practice at being bad at something, receiving feedback and learning to improve.
Roy G. (roy-gardiner)
on 2013-10-25 19:38
So that no-one has to scroll back here are those characteristics again: - write 'tight' code. They think that fewer keystrokes = good - think their problem is 'complex' (never 'complicated') and thus must have a complex solution -- they don't try to simplify. - deliberately try out as many new features as they can, in live code, to improve their own knowledge and to show off - choose the difficult,complicated (but of course 'more comprehensive' or 'more elegant')way over the easy, simple way of doing anything. I am not talking about relatively inexperienced people open to correction, but people who do this stuff habitually and defend it as good practice.
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 7:38 PM, Roy Gardiner <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote: > > > I am not talking about relatively inexperienced people open to > correction, but people who do this stuff habitually and defend it as > good practice. I am not sure I still understand what point you are trying to make or what opinions you want to gather. In what ways would a programming language make it harder or easier for people to write overly complicated code who "do this stuff habitually and defend it as good practice"? I mean, you seem to diagnose a certain intend here and as all programming languages must be Turing complete to be useful I cannot see what feature could there be to prevent or curtail this kind of behavior. Kind regards robert
on 2013-10-26 15:11
i've just across a ruby gem called flog https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/categories/code_metrics which tests for complexity of code. The higher the score, the more complex the code and therefore the harder it is to test it. This might be helpful.
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