Self taught coding...

[planetnine]

Someone's been inspired by my coding again...









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[Claudiohbsantos]

Hahahah Yeah, I am barely an amateur coder yet, but when I open the first scripts I wrote I cringe... Sometimes it's easier to just rewrite from scratch instead of trying to make sense of the monsters

[SaulT]

I mostly look at what I write, figure it's okay, then I look at Tale's code and hate myself. On the other hand, a lot of the JSFX that are bundled are not written for comprehension, so I don't feel super bad about it.

[Runaway]

My excuse is that I write my code like that for security reasons - that way even I can't reveal how it works

[Lawrence]

Haha. That cartoon strongly resembles me.

I started obfuscating my code not because I care if anyone steals the source code, more because I'm just embarrassed by it.

[Runaway]

All I can say is thank goodness for compilers LOL

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Runaway

All I can say is thank goodness for compilers LOL

Lol.

"Uh, your car runs fine and will do everything it was designed to do... just don't look under the hood."

As a side note, what impresses me most looking at really good code is the layers, the abstraction, that requires a certain kind of thought process that (I assume) at least partly comes from training or instinct. Self taught (not by sequential lesson but by trial and error) coders appear to code much more literally, in straighter more literal lines A to Z, which in the end is not a good thing.

[Runaway]

Not sure I can totally agree with that - mind you I've seen code that you can eat off its that clean ;-)
At the same time I've seen code that you could bludgeon someone to death with - and yet both get the job done - and getting the job done is really what matters.

It all comes down to being able to understand and maintain the code because at the end of the day the difference in performance is usually negligible for compiled languages like C/C++ etal.

I remember at University (I was a mature student in name only) a professor once asked the class "which is better, a maintainable program or a working program".
Knowing full well the answer he wanted I replied the opposite "a working program", "Wrong!" he exclaimed.
To that I replied "I beg to differ, a working program means you can invoice for it now and maintenance is another work order requiring yet more invoicing later"
He sighed and gave me a death stare while the rest of the class took copious notes

[X-Raym]

I saw that yesterday haha so funny :P

If you guys wanted an nice developper oriented webcomic, take a look at Commit-Strip.

@Runaway
Haha nice story :P

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Lol.



As a side note, what impresses me most looking at really good code is the layers, the abstraction, that requires a certain kind of thought process that (I assume) at least partly comes from training or instinct. Self taught (not by sequential lesson but by trial and error) coders appear to code much more literally, in straighter more literal lines A to Z, which in the end is not a good thing.

It allows much more efficiency and less duplication of code etc. It basically goes like this..

1. Sequential gets you up and running much faster but forks in the design/needs later (which almost always occur) will kill you and you spend more time coding later.

2. Abstract/layers requires a good bit of upfront work, thought and prewiring that most DIYers don't have the patience for, they want to see it working right now. However, this method allows much better scaling/changes later without turning it into spaghetti code and you spend less time coding later.

^I do both depending... The hard part is (which all my coding buddies agree with) that you code for an hour simply as proof of concept then that turns into the product even when that wasn't the intention LOL. That's what you typically want to avoid tbh, once the proof is done, go back and do it the right way unless it is a one off, never to be revisited but that is rarely the case for anything other than simple utilities.

[karbomusic]

and getting the job done is really what matters.

I tend to want disagree with that, its sort of like opening a piece of gear and seeing a rats nest of wires and crappy solder joints. It works, but you couldn't pay me to work on it.

[Lawrence]

Yes, thanks. Your comments below explain exactly what I meant by that and the definition of abstraction also pretty much nails my thoughts on that... "the quality of dealing [maybe in this case "a little more"] with ideas rather than events".

Originally Posted by karbomusic

It allows much more efficiency and less duplication of code etc. It basically goes like this..

1. Sequential gets you up and running much faster but forks in the design/needs later (which almost always occur) will kill you and you spend more time coding later.

2. Abstract/layers requires a good bit of upfront work, thought and prewiring that most DIYers don't have the patience for, they want to see it working right now. However, this method allows much better scaling/changes later without turning it into spaghetti code and you spend less time coding later.

^I do both depending... The hard part is (which all my coding buddies agree with) that you code for an hour simply as proof of concept then that turns into the product even when that wasn't the intention LOL. That's what you typically want to avoid tbh, once the proof is done, go back and do it the right way unless it is a one off, never to be revisited but that is rarely the case for anything other than simple utilities.

[SaulT]

*looks upon the rats nest of components in mute horror*