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Maude, the developers are infighting again...

By gavin.parish on January 31, 2009 12:34 PM


I was just having a chuckle at Bex Huff's post about "Why Do So Many Developers Love Baffingly Complex Code?". I'm a DBA by trade so find it funny when developers get into lively debate trying to justify themselves.

I've seen my fair share of complex code, some needs to be, and some really doesn't need to be. And when you see it, you wonder why the heck it was done like that...

Here's my suggestion:

"The complexity of a developers code is directly correlated to their feeling of job security; the less secure the job, the more complex the code, and vice versa."

As 'no one else can figure it out', the developer is still required to maintain their overly complex code, therefore ensuring future employment...

Is that too harsh. :-)


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Comments (1)

Paul Gallagher:

Gavin, I think you are quite right - the 'no one else can figure it out' job security strategy does seem to be practised by many.

There's only one teenie problem: these same people are often surprised when they get the pink slip anyway!

If no-one understands what they do, it's too easy for the pointy-head boss to rationalise that low cost outsourcing can do the same job, and with more compliant/manageable code monkeys to boot.

I think a better survival strategy is to take Steve Yegge's words to heart: "If there was one thing I could teach every engineer, it would be how to market."
Jeff Atwood had an interesting discussion of this on his blog http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001177.html

Posted by Paul Gallagher | May 12, 2009 11:39 AM

Posted on May 12, 2009 11:39

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