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Ask Slashdot: Getting Feedback On Programming?

Posted by Soulskill on from the in-search-of-a-guru dept.

jm223 writes "I'm currently a student at a major university, where I do IT work for a fairly large student group. Most of my job involves programming, and so far everyone has been happy with my work. Since we're students, though, no one really has the experience to offer major advice or critiques, and I'm curious about how my coding measures up — and, of course, how I can make it better. CS professors can offer feedback about class projects, but my schoolwork often bears little resemblance to my other work. So, when you're programming without an experienced manager above you, how do you go about improving?"

7 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Contribute to open source projects by dwmw2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Contribute to open source projects. You'll get plenty of feedback. Some of it might be quite, erm, 'robust', especially with certain projects. But it'll almost all be useful, and you'll be doing something worthwhile.

    1. Re:Contribute to open source projects by wrook · · Score: 5, Informative

      When asked this question, I often think, "How do aspiring writers learn their craft?" People who study English read ridiculous numbers of books. This gives them a base to start from when they are writing.

      Writing your own code is invaluable, but when you are just starting out it helps not only to contribute to open source projects, but also to read, read, read. I recommend going through some interesting projects and then forming an opinion about which ones have the best code. Don't just look at it superficially; try to form opinions on specific practices, idioms and designs. Then choose a project to work on and try to follow those ideas. From that point the feedback will be more valuable.

      One of the things that Kent Beck said one time (possibly in an interview with Floss Weekly; I can't remember) was that his level really improved when he sat down and really thought about what he was doing. He just kept writing things over and over again until he could say exactly why he did everything. IIRC, he wrote down all his ideas and put it in a book on Smalltalk coding practices (which I haven't read yet...) I've been trying to do the same thing lately and it is really beneficial. Forming your own ideas and *then* getting feedback seems to be more productive than writing "just to make it work" and getting feedback.

      Just be open minded when you think you have it all sorted out, but someone else thinks your ideas suck ;-)

  2. Post it by datavirtue · · Score: 5, Funny

    Go ahead and post it. We'll offer plenty of........critique.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  3. dont worry so much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    don't worrry so much about improving. you've probably been coding for 2 years or so (given you're in college) and have made amazing progress in those 2 years. the most important thing you can do is use existing libraries. when you reinvent the wheel, no one understands your code. when you use standard libraries, people still may not understand it, but it's going to be faster and more stable than equivalent code you wrote.

    i've been coding for 8 years and as long as your code is maintainable, works, commented, and capable, you're doing a good job. also, for the love of god, don't hardcode your file paths or operating system. use a standard library, never do a system call. when you have do, error check it.

  4. Code Review Stack Exchange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can try posting at least some of the code here:

    http://codereview.stackexchange.com/

  5. Re:Try coding for OSS by W3BMAST3R101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your "idea" doesn't work within his original request. Is that all you fucking retards know is to caw on about open source? A bunch of fucking jokers. If you can't offer up advice to adhere to the original request then shut your fucking ass. Fuck you and fuck your open source. Fucking retarded bitch ass cunt.

    Please don't sugar coat it. Tell us how you really feel.

  6. Re:Try coding for OSS by wrook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's going to be nigh impossible to get anyone to review your work code, even though they should.

    This is unfortunately all too true in most cases. Most organizations do not understand the benefit of rigorous code reviews. If they review code at all, they often only look to see if there are bugs, or if (usually fairly arbitrary) coding standards are followed. I've been lucky enough to work on a few teams with brutally honest reviews. It can be intimidating, but in the end it is incredibly useful for developing yourself. Things like pair programming can also be very useful in this regard.

    One of the things that always bugged me as a programmer was that never once in 20 years did anyone ever evaluate my performance on the basis of the quality of my code. In fact, it was unbelievably rare when the person who evaluated my performance ever even looked at my code. Many of my immediate superiors would not have had the ability to judge one way or another, but even then they never bothered to ask my peers to look at my code and comment.

    For some reason, I often think about programming teams as if they were sports teams. The way most teams are run, you have a manager who knows little about the game you are trying to play and never watches a game. There are no coaches. You performance is loosely evaluated on whether or not your team wins games, but even then the manager usually tries to make it appear that the team won every game whether they did or not. When they try to get new players, they don't bother looking at the success of the player on their previous teams, or even watch them play. At most they set up some artificial 5 minute drill and evaluate that, but usually they base their decisions on a feel-good interview.

    It's quite literally crazy IMHO. In the case of sports it is obvious that this isn't going to work. I'm not sure why it isn't obvious for programming teams.