NYCPHP Meetup

[Nicholas Tang]

I think, more often than not, you'll find that shops have poor practices
and barely readable code.  That seems to be the norm.

There's obvious value, of course, to having standards (even loose ones)
and structure (even a casual one) and to having best practices.  I think
selling your fellow developers on it won't be that hard - but you need
to get them to see the big picture, the long view, not just "but I've
got this project due tomorrow and I don't have time for comments!".  As
long as you are practical and take their concerns into account, they'll
listen.

As far as management?  From my experience, the best way to convince them
is to put together a business case.  It doesn't need to be on letterhead
and bound into a leather case, but it should provide a summary of the
project, and a fairly realistic view of the costs (and there will be
many, in terms of re-coding, documentation, etc.) and the benefits -
time saved in debugging, by avoiding recoding, etc.  Even better, break
it down step by step, for each aspect of the project, and show them how
each change will impact things.  At the end, give them an easily
digestible summary (yes, another one!), and keep it neat - tables or
charts are good.

Also, I'm a big fan of the skunkworks concept - next project you get,
write all of your code cleanly, document it, use includes, make it
modular, etc. and get the people working with you on it to do the same.
As you finish it, and get into debugging, adding features, etc. document
both how long it took you to write and how long it takes to maintain.
Document that vs. the messy stuff.  Chances are you'll have clear
numbers to support you and an actual practical example to present to
people.

In the end, people generally want to do things the "right way", but they
don't always know what that is - and they don't always like being told
that they're wrong.  The hardest part of this will be introducing it to
them gently in a fashion that doesn't put them off of it.  Don't focus
on proving that you're right - focus on selling them on it.  Make them
feel good about it, and make them feel good about supporting your ideas.
I know, icky, but it works, and it's a rare skill in a technical person.
;)

Nicholas


> >  From: talk-bounces at lists.nyphp.org 
> [mailto:talk-bounces at lists.nyphp.org]
> On
> > Behalf Of Ben Sgro
> > Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 9:51 AM
> > To: talk at lists.nyphp.org
> > Subject: [nycphp-talk] General Q; Programming Jobs & Expectations
> > So, my question is: Is it unreasonable of myself to have 
> expectations of
> > 'engineered' code or is this (current job) just the way things are.
> >
> > Is it crazy to think I can change things from the bottom, 
> by writing the
> > specs and speaking with the other programmers to reach a 
> consensus on
> 'best
> > practices' and create 'grassroots' support? Should I just 
> 'suck it up' and
> > put in my time, then move to another job?
> >
> >
> >
> > I've been consulting along with my fulltime work for about 
> 2 years now,
> and
> > I believe that is what I truly enjoy, being my own boss.
> >
> > But I do need a paycheck every week, so this is not yet a viable
> > alternative.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks for your time, I am eager to view your responses!
> >
> >
> >
> > - Ben
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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