This did NOT age well. Seriously consider some of the traits that this article is describing and play the game "Are We Describing a Programmer or a Zuckerburgian Psychopath?"

A tendency to suggest wacky and unrealistic solutions in meetings
Routinely applies for an extension to file taxes
Antagonistic when asked to maintain code for
backwards-compatability
Dropped out of high-school, university, law or medical school because they didn't see the point anymore
Disinterested by the outcome of elections
Cashes-in their 401k to fund their next venture
Has tried every pick-up line there is and has the slap-marks on his cheeks to prove it
Owns swag from Enron
They suddenly pause and stare into space in the middle of a conversation, then abandon you to hurry back to their terminal with no explanation
A destructive pursuit of perfection
Contempt for delivery dates
Substantial refactoring on the eve of a deadline

[–] key@lemmy.keychat.org 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A cubicle or desk populated with toys that came from ThinkGeek

What year is it?

checks git blame

Oh... 2014. That checks out.

[–] Manticore 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Man, I used to really like browsing the stuff at ThinkGeek. Even bought a few things. Now that it's owned by... I wanna say GameStop?... it's ceased to be interesting to me. I liked things like the laundry basket that looked like a radioactive barrel, the shower gel that looks like a blood bag... that kind of light-hearted novelty stuff. But the new owner just gutted all the interesting content, and it's just all IP collectables now.

It's been long enough I forgot bout ThinkGeek. Damn. Wish something like it were still around.

[–] snowbell 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I still use my Bag of Holding, haven't found a messenger bag that comes close. Mid 2000's ThinkGeek was the best. I still mourn the loss of them.

[–] Velonie 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This reads very much like a tech bro wrote it

The writer assumes the reader is a man also. They use he and they to refer to programmers, but never she. The only time she is used in this entire document is referring to a woman delivering your code:

The outcome you should be thinking of is a lady who's going to get fired if she doesn't deliver the output of your program at 4:59pm sharp.

[–] DaSaw@midwest.social 2 points 1 year ago

Back in 2014, "he" was still considered by many to double up as a gender neutral singular pronoun (which was the standard in English for at least a century). The rehabilitation of "they" as a gender neutral singular is very, very recent. I had to be actively taught not to use it that way back in the late '80s.

This, of course, was the proscriptivist position. Kids who "don't know any better" have always used a gender neutral singular "they" until their teachers told them not to.

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[–] MadMonkey@feddit.it 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm surely the worst programmer ❤️

[–] Bougie_Birdie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 year ago

Second worst, after me

[–] upstream 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m a naughty programmer. What are the signs of that?

[–] JonEvans@mas.to 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

@upstream using a mixture of tabs and spaces

[–] upstream 1 points 1 year ago

On the same line 😈

[–] Solaris1789@jlai.lu 1 points 1 year ago

getting arrested by the python police

[–] eskuero@lemmy.fromshado.ws 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Damm I think I might do some bulldozing sometimes, but is fair game when splitting into a different file for organization?

[–] luciole 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I don't agree with "bulldozer code" bit. Splitting a long function into smaller parts doesn't have to be about reuse. It's useful to do it for clarity. As a single function grows, the number of local variable often grows as well and eventually you end up juggling tons of variables and the slightest change ripples three hundred lines further down. Break it down into a handful of steps with a number of arguments you can count on your fingers and it suddenly becomes so simple. Same about deep nesting of loops/conditions.

Rule of thumb is a function needs to fit in my head - so if I stick my face on the screen and the function's code can still be partly seen, it's time to break it down.

[–] phoenixes 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The main thing I encourage here is: If you're breaking up longer functions into more smaller ones that are really only used in this context, don't mix them into the same file as functions that are general use. It makes code super confusing to navigate. Speaking from experience on an open source project I contribute to.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 2 points 1 year ago

This is definitely wrong because according to it, I'm a fantastic programmer and destined for more.

[–] iamhazel 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think I'm an decent programmer as measured by these values. Having no real training/education, I often doubt my abilities.

[–] MariaRomanov@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On the flip side I work with people who have been doing it for 20+ years and are "bad" programmers.

[–] iamhazel 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My problem is I've never yet really seen a project through, or contributed to FOSS to experience that, though I really want to. I feel like I'd get overwhelmed, and can't possibly contribute anything of value, and would just get in the way. I know it's not true, there are endless projects of varying complexity, and I could certainly learn an existing codebase if I found the confidence to try.

[–] SWW13@lemmy.brief.guru 3 points 1 year ago

Some (larger) projects sometimes have a form of mentoring and "good first issue" to get started.

Another good way to get involved is to report any issues you face with open source projects you use (obviously search for similar reports first). This way you can help debug bugs or suggest improvements and get some feedback.