Haseman has an article on
what makes a good programmer presumably this is in opposition to signs
you may be a bad programmer. In the commercial world software is developed within the confines of a project and all the organizational boundaries that entails. I would consider what makes a good programmer:
1. Hits deadlines and if they are missing them they tell you quickly and openly that they cannot make it in the alotted time. It is more about honesty as to where a developer is in a task. I have never seen anyone say you will have to find a way to do it in the time, resources, etc are always shuffled to accommodate these kinds of issues. I always reckon one major task will be hopelessly under-scoped and another over-scoped. Moving resources around is rarely an issue.
2. Hits the spec to completeness. Most bugs are not quality flaws, instead they are spec completion issues. Timelines in projects are usually so short and compressed that hitting a spec to perfection in the time a task is intended means that bugs that are found are not about spec completion issues but real quality flaws; ie bugs.
3. Is productive in new technologies quickly. In the last project we did the team used the technologies; Flex, Actionscript, PureMVC, Java, Javascript, Spring, Struts, JSP tags, DHTML, Dojo, SVG, FXG, XML, E4X, etc, etc. Once you go into maintenance mode and bug fixing; any one person on the team may have to work in any or all of those areas even if they are not familiar with it. Being able to do quality work in new technologies is an under-rated skill.
4. No hand holding. One of the things I dislike is when someone is in an area of code and knows that something needs to be done, but are hesitant to go and make the change because of a fear of breaking something, or not wanting to step on someone else's toes, or they lack confidence to make the change, or they would rather someone else do it which is usually impossible when everyone is busy. I always say, "If you need it, go ahead and do it." I prefer developers with that kind of confidence who will modify code at any level of the technology stack. That isn't everyone's cup of tea but developers tend to harden up quickly and grow in confidence when they are given that expectation and responsibility.
There are other engineering considerations, for instance a developer that does not understand object oriented programming or type safety can wreak havoc in a project for a period until their work is caught and examined. But these are fixable things that come with experience.
Bad design and over-engineering are hard to refactor out in a project based environment as they require a 'project' or 'mini-spec' for time to be given to code and engineering improvement. Business focused companies do not want to spend capital on that often and would rather innovate in new revenue streams while keeping existing/working code in place until it needs to be overhauled for reasons of capacity or customer experience degradation.
More Reading on Software engineering
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
