NYCPHP Meetup

[David Krings]

On 8/20/2013 6:31 PM, Gary Mort wrote:
> The only scale I know of is "beginner/expert"...  Studies show that for
> beginners, productivity and code quality increase dramatically when they
> adhere to a set of code quality rules, version control guidelines, etc as
> agreed upon by the expert coders in the group.
>
> At the same time, productive and code quality DECREASES dramatically for the
> expert programmer when they are asked to adhere to those same rules.

Neither quality not productivity decrease in any way if developers adhere to 
code quality rules, version control guidelines, and good programming and code 
commenting practices in general. Yes, the expert coder might be able to throw 
something together that works well, but how does that look three months later 
when a different developer needs to extend or fix that code? I hear it every 
day, developers complaining about each others code as being convoluted and 
unreadable - except for one developer's code. He meticulously sticks to all 
the rules and guidelines the team agreed to and adds copious amounts of 
commentary, so much and so clearly written that even I (non-developer) can 
easily follow. Unfortunately, he just quit, but none of the other developers 
had any issues with picking up where he left off.
There is no excuse for not adhering rules, guidelines, and agreements and the 
claim that ignoring all that improves productivity for expert developers in 
the long run is a myth. At least going by my almost 20 years in QA and quality 
related fields.

I'd think that the scales of competency for programming languages are similar 
to those of natural languages. So can you express what is needed in code and 
can others with little effort understand it? Further, can you read and 
understand the code of others assuming they do not use some slang or shorthand 
that only few comprehend?

David