NYCPHP Meetup

[Elliotte Harold]

Brian D. wrote:
>> Programmers who write quality code do not write code slower than
>> programmers who don't. If anything they produce more lines of code per
>> day, and their code does more.
> 
> You can certainly write an application, placing your SQL calls, HTML
> layout, and everything else all in the same files, ignoring security
> problems, and skipping documentation, much, *much* faster than you can
> create an application that considers security issues, best practices,
> well-documented code, etc.
> 

It depends on the application. Small apps maybe. Big apps no. There is a 
scale at which the hack job never gets close to working, and a smaller 
scale at which the hack job takes too long.

Hack jobs only work if the app is so small that a dev can finish it fast 
and keep it more or less all in their head. Apps that are so large they 
require teams of programmers working over months can only succeed if 
they follow sound development practices.

This is something I struggle with all the time in my classes. It's hard 
to convince students of the necessity of basic things like proper 
indentation and naming conventions when most of them have never worked 
on a project large enough for that to matter.

I suspect the necessary turnaround point is anything more than one 
developer and/or more than one week. However in the so-called real world 
*most* projects are that large.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo at metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/