What Type of Programmer Are You?
closed account (zb0S216C)
From this list: http://stevenbenner.com/2010/07/the-5-types-of-programmers/ , which category do you fit into? (has this been asked before?)
I'm the perfectionist. My narcissistic nature doesn't help either.
Wazzak
I'm the perfectionist. My narcissistic nature doesn't help either.
Wazzak
I'm kind of a mixture of all of them. Sorry I couldn't give you a straight answer, but I never fit into these things :/
I'm a mix of the perfectionist and theoretical programmer types, in that I spend a lot of time planning and I am somewhat OC about my code.
The fine details are that I do actually write code while figuring out the best way to go about things and that sometimes I will write hacky code as something to be polished later or as a proof-of-concept.
@chrisname:
It happens only rarely that someone actually fits into those things. Which of those types would you say you have the most of?
-Albatross
The fine details are that I do actually write code while figuring out the best way to go about things and that sometimes I will write hacky code as something to be polished later or as a proof-of-concept.
@chrisname:
It happens only rarely that someone actually fits into those things. Which of those types would you say you have the most of?
-Albatross
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The theoretical one, although I've been trying to fix that. I spend a lot more time thinking about the code that I might write eventually than actually writing code. "Perfectionist" is what I would strife for, and "duct tape" is what most of my work ends up being (to be fair, that's largely due to the broken codebase of the project I'm working on - it's been quickly hacked together by a bunch of people who were developing the code on the basis of "well, I need this feature til next week so I can't be too picky". The result is the most monolithic code base I've ever seen - there are headers that REQUIRE to be included between two other headers because they don't include their own dependencies and are themselves basis for other headers - that also don't include them. ARGH)
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Well, in my mind I tend to be the perfectionist, but my programs rarely work out the way I want them to (I code myself into corners, basically), and I often end up being a cross between the perfectionist, the half-assed programmer and the duct tape guy. I sympathise with the anti-programming programmer in that I always try to find a library that does what I want to do. Usually, though, unless that library is very, very good I end up writing it myself anyway. I also sympathise with the theoretical programmer in that, although I almost never design anything (and when I do, I design it but don't write it), I do sometimes find myself staring at the screen, as if I'm expecting the code to write itself according to what I want it to do. Usually when that happens, after a few seconds I'll spontaneously start writing code.
In answer to your question, I guess I'm a cross between the perfectionist, half-assed and duct tape categories.
In answer to your question, I guess I'm a cross between the perfectionist, half-assed and duct tape categories.
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When I start a project, I tend to be the perfectionist type, but as time goes on, I start shifting over towards the duct tape guy. It has an interesting effect on the source of any project I'm in :/
I'm the sixth type of programmer. "A programmer who codes and doesn't bother with labeling myself to a style of programming."
closed account (3hM2Nwbp)
I'm whatever type of programmer that's required at the time. If I'm needed to roll out a quick patch because the company is losing $1000 / minute because of downtime, then yeah: I'll use the whole roll of duct tape on it. If the customer wants a beautiful API, then I'll be the perfectionist / theoretical guy. If the customer wants to pay a half-assed bounty, I'll give them half-assed code.
In my own personal projects, I'm 80% theoretical and 20% perfectionist.
I've never been much of an anti-programming programmer, because I find that most (free) libraries just aren't up to par. If a library doesn't have a standard documentation system (like doxygen), I don't think it's even worth trying to use. If you can't figure out how to use a library after spending 10 minutes reading the (beautiful) documentation, then it's not even worth trying to use. I could go on forever about this, so I'll stop now. :\ I lied, one more thing really irks me...when the library's documentation has example code AND DOESN'T IDENTIFY WHICH HEADERS TO INCLUDE IN SAID EXAMPLE CODE. Also, what's with example code that doesn't either A) fully qualify the data types used, or B) include a using namespace X line? If the user already knew that much about the library (IE memorizing namespace layouts), they wouldn't be reading a basic example in the first place. segfault @ common_sense
In my own personal projects, I'm 80% theoretical and 20% perfectionist.
I've never been much of an anti-programming programmer, because I find that most (free) libraries just aren't up to par. If a library doesn't have a standard documentation system (like doxygen), I don't think it's even worth trying to use. If you can't figure out how to use a library after spending 10 minutes reading the (beautiful) documentation, then it's not even worth trying to use. I could go on forever about this, so I'll stop now. :\ I lied, one more thing really irks me...when the library's documentation has example code AND DOESN'T IDENTIFY WHICH HEADERS TO INCLUDE IN SAID EXAMPLE CODE. Also, what's with example code that doesn't either A) fully qualify the data types used, or B) include a using namespace X line? If the user already knew that much about the library (IE memorizing namespace layouts), they wouldn't be reading a basic example in the first place. segfault @ common_sense
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closed account (S6k9GNh0)
I am by all means an OCD perfectionist while still being anti-programming.
I remember very recently remaking a network client for Teamspeak that handled various things concerning permissions and events on a Teamspeak server. It parsed network messages generically (Bison/Flex), used asyncronous sockets built over a layer that optimizes it per platform (Boost.ASIO), and uses a small scripting language for conventional users (Bison/Flex) to make it do anything within the limits of the Teamspeak SQ protocol. On top of that, it's in the form of a library and exposes a truly C interface capable of binding to virtually any language.
600 lines which took me about... 100 hours to make T.T. (To be fair though, some of it was a learning experience, such as using Bison/Flex (learning parsing concepts, language design, so on))
I remember very recently remaking a network client for Teamspeak that handled various things concerning permissions and events on a Teamspeak server. It parsed network messages generically (Bison/Flex), used asyncronous sockets built over a layer that optimizes it per platform (Boost.ASIO), and uses a small scripting language for conventional users (Bison/Flex) to make it do anything within the limits of the Teamspeak SQ protocol. On top of that, it's in the form of a library and exposes a truly C interface capable of binding to virtually any language.
600 lines which took me about... 100 hours to make T.T. (To be fair though, some of it was a learning experience, such as using Bison/Flex (learning parsing concepts, language design, so on))
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| He will spend 80% of his time staring blankly at his computer thinking up ways to accomplish a task |
I think I'm a theoretical type. Also being duct tape type for some projects. I guess anyone can have the tendency to become duct tape for some reasons.
Now, it makes me wonder what influences me (or any other programmers) to fall to such category. I'm guessing, because of the books I (we) read.
| I'm guessing, because of the books I (we) read. |
Definitely a factor. After having read head first design patterns, I didn't dare to write a single line of code for WEEKS.
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