View Poll Results: What's your opinion? What's professional programming about?

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  • Mostly bug-hunting and fixing, as we usually "inherit" buggy code

    2 12.50%
  • Designing is the clue - a good design is vital

    0 0%
  • Good coding and testing leads to good software

    9 56.25%
  • Usually there's no time for all required steps, that's why there's still buggy software

    5 31.25%

Thread: Professional programming = bug-fixing?

  1. #1
    Normal vector Carlos's Avatar
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    Professional programming = bug-fixing?

    Professional programming is not always that creative work I imagined ...
    What's your opinion?

  2. #2
    A Banana Yoshi's Avatar
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    Good programming and testing means good programmers. Bugs usually occured in new-comers.
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    Engineer223
    Yoshi

  3. #3
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    do you really think so?

    i haven't discoverd yet a good, complex bugfree program -> the complexer a program is the more bugs are in it
    Hope you don't mind my bad english, I'm Austrian!

  4. #4
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    Date: 10/7/2001
    To: Cprogramming.com members/mods/amin/guest
    From: Gamegod3001
    re: Professional programming = bug-fixing?

    >Good programming and testing means good programmers. Bugs usually occured in new-comers. <

    >i haven't discoverd yet a good, complex bugfree program -> the complexer a program is the more bugs are in it<

    Your both right, a new comer has would have the tendency to have more bugs in there program, and complex programs by there very nature have more bugs.
    To Err Is To Be Human. To Game Is Divine!"

  5. #5
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    A lot of industry documentation says that 80% of a developer's time is spent bug-hunting and fixing, and only 20% on other ventures (i.e., new development). So to say that professional programming = bug fixing is actually fairly accurate.

    I'd be inclined to wonder though, how much of the bug-fixing is a result of errors being introduced out of carelessness and how much out of functionality/compatability issues. I.e., how many bugs can be prevented on the front end via "good coding practices" (coding standards, white box testing, etc.), and how many can only be found via functionality and system-level testing.

    I would think, especially if programming was my professional "day job" that I would want to create as error-free code as possible so that I could spend the better part of my day on new endeavours. Realizing this, however, there's still a big industry backlash against developers performing "testing" functions. It seems like a cycle:
    -- developers developer because that's what they like to do
    -- developers don't test because that's not what they like to do
    -- testers test because ... they're testers
    -- testers find errors that developers could have found if they had tested, document these errors, then pass them back to developers
    -- developers now have to address documented errors, this time with the attached paperwork, and then re-submit the code to testers
    -- rinse and repeat

    Almost makes ya wonder which came first -- the chicken or the egg.

  6. #6
    >>Bugs usually occured in new-comers.

    Uh...That's not entirely true. Bugs can pop up anywhere. Big things like Linux even have bugs. It's all part of programming, although I agree that good coding and testing results in a good program. (mostly)
    What will people say if they hear that I'm a Jesus freak?
    What will people do if they find that it's true?
    I don't really care if they label me a Jesus freak, there is no disguising the truth!

    Jesus Freak, D.C. Talk

    -gnu-ehacks

  7. #7
    A Banana Yoshi's Avatar
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    You are correct. Bugs are nearly impossible to eliminate.
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    Engineer223
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  8. #8
    "My program doesnt have bugs; It just develops random features."


    A few technical terms one might find useful:

    Keyboard - The standard way to generate computer errors.

    Mouse - An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.

    Disk Crash - A typical computer response to any critical deadline.

    System Update - A quick method of trashing ALL of your software.

    Stack - A memory space used to entertain the programmers and management by overflowing or being subjected to mismatched PUSH/POPs.

    Bug - An aspect of a computer program which exists because the PROGRAMMER was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program.

    Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed.
    "There's always another way"
    -lightatdawn (lightatdawn.cprogramming.com)

  9. #9
    Registered User Aran's Avatar
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    the scary thing is.. that's completely true.

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