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Real World Code Sucks

Posted by Soulskill on from the so-does-real-world-math-and-real-world-cooking dept.

An anonymous reader tips an article at El Reg about the disparity between the code you learn at school and the code you see at work. Quoting: "There is a kind of cognitive dissonance in most people who've moved from the academic study of computer science to a job as a real-world software developer. The conflict lies in the fact that, whereas nearly every sample program in every textbook is a perfect and well-thought-out specimen, virtually no software out in the wild is, and this is rarely acknowledged. To be precise: a tremendous amount of source code written for real applications is not merely less perfect than the simple examples seen in school — it's outright terrible by any number of measures."

2 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory XKCD by doubleplusungodly · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://xkcd.com/844/

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  2. Re:Captain Obvious? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

    The first thought that occurred to me is the equivalent situation in literature: People go to school, read and learn from Shakespeare, Austen, Melville, Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, Tolkien...and then they go out and write Twilight and Hunger Games. I guess some people simply aren't cut for it?

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    Ezekiel 23:20