Lies Programmers Tell Themselves

itwbennett writes "Everybody lies to themselves now and again in both their personal lives ('my bathroom scale probably needs to be recalibrated') and professional lives ('this code doesn't need commenting'). ITworld has compiled some of the common lies programmers tell themselves. Here are a few examples: 'This bug won't take long to fix.' 'No one could possibly fail to understand my simple user interface.' 'Code is self documenting.' 'My homebrew framework will be nimble, lightweight, debugged, and easy to use.' 'I know this is dirty code, I will rewrite it later.' 'It's just one line... it won't break anything.' '"It works on my machine.' 'I don't need version control.' 'It's written in ____, so it'll be easy to ____.' What would you add to this list?"

Comments

Hofstadter's Law

[Kensai7]

"It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."

Re:Hofstadter's Law

[arkhan_jg]

"I'll just fix this quick and dirty for now, management will allow me time to redo it properly later."

Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these are obvious and well understood.

Some (slightly less obvious) ones:
- Something must be wrong with this library (that is used successfully by everyone else)
- Theoretically two threads could try to change that variable at the same time, but it’ll never actually happen
- Just about anything starting with "no one will ever"
- Anyone who wants to use this class will look at the code / documentation and see that they can't actually use it in that (usually intuitive) manner.

Also can we please stop posting articles from itworld. They are all the same: tiny bits of content split over a ridiculous number of pages to maximize ad revenue.

Seriously, this is like 1990s levels of ad spamming. First you have the full window click through ad, then you have ads on every 10 word slide, a click through in the middle of the slides, and then just for good measure the last slide isn’t a content slide but yet another ad!

I feel like I need 10 levels of toolbars and bonzo-buddy running in the background to really appreciate the experience of this site.

Lies

[boundary]

"My facial hair makes me look interesting and makes up for my lack of social graces."

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't think anyone will smell this fart."

Number 1 in my experience

[mbone]

I'll document this code once I'm done.

Re:Number 1 in my experience

[pr0fessor]

catch(exception x) { //You've been eaten by a grue. } is error handling.

Lie 10

[n1ywb]

Lie 10: itworld.com has interesting, informative, insightful, and meaningful content.

we'll be greeted as liberators

[lemur3]

oh uhh lies programmers tell themselves..

how about

this new website design is going to be great, our users will love it!

Re:we'll be greeted as liberators

[Anrego]

"All our users are complaining bitterly about these changes, but I'm sure once they get used to it they will see we had it right all along."

See also: gnome

The Whopper

[American AC in Paris]

"Well if you let the programmers run the show, things would be so much better."

Re:Commenting code

[PvtVoid]

Good code rarely needs commenting though. Too many comments are often an indicator of poorly organized code.

Dear person who thinks that "good code rarely needs commenting": the entire world wants to beat you senseless with a nine iron.

You're welcome.

How about the IT-WORLD programmers?

[dmomo]

1) People will enjoy this content more if it's in a slideshows.
2) It's OK if ad-blocking breaks my core javascript functionality.
3) Nobody is going to view this site in a modern browser.

Re:abstract wacky name

[mrchaotica]

Gentoo is a kind of (species of) penguin, just as Gentoo Linux is a kind of (distribution of) Linux.

Re:This job is only temporary.

[NotDrWho]

Management says that this patch of 60-hour weeks is just a fluke and once everything is back on track it won't happen again.

Oh frameworks...

[razathorn]

Let us not forget that almost every framework you "should use" started out as a framework that "shouldn't be written." Only after enough people changed their mind, did the original author(s) become visionaries instead of "people who reinvented the wheel." I find that the tendency to "don't write that, it's already been written!" has been greatly blown out of proportion and people are allergic to actual software engineering. In other words, if they do more than extend / implement a predefined interface or glorified configuration on a single class instance... like heaven forbid they define an interface, base class, or object model with multiple things that derive it, then by god, they've gone too far! There is a time and place for frameworks, and realizing that the time and place isn't "every freak'n time" is just as important as not constantly reinventing the wheel.

From Scratch

[asylumx]

"If we rewrite this from scratch, it'll be WAY better!"

loyalty

[Anonymous Coward]

If I keep working these extra hours, the company will reward me with big raises and job security.