Code… It’s the unofficial language of geekdom all over the planet. It’s what makes the technology everyone knows and loves work, and brings amazing software functionality to our gadgets. We know a lot of you speak it, but how many of you speak it fluently? How many of you code as part of your day job?
We want to know more about the developers here in the Gizmodo community. So let us know where abouts you fit in the development spectrum below!
Image by maga/ShutterStock
Sam
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:08 PMNeeds an option to say it IS my job, not just a daily part.
Alex
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:17 PM+1 – it is my job..
Alex, Analyst Programmer aka Lord of Code.
Micha Wotton
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:23 PM+1 – My job too.
Your Mate Alex
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:25 PMbut then you would be torn between “IS my job” and “is a daily part of my job” … some dickhead would say “what if it is my job AND it’s a daily part of my job” …. this whole poll need a complete re-think, an iphone specific app and android expected release date or it’s meaningless.
Mark
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 8:37 PMnow your thinking like a coder, the same coders whos still believe html isn’t a coding language.
spiderlama
Friday, January 21, 2011 at 9:52 AMHTML isn’t a coding language – it’s text based RTF
william
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:21 PMis, is my job would be way better, but of course you you cant, as we need to do admin work, such as emails and gah, MEETINGS~!!
Antony Ashton
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:28 PMWriting any programming language fluently isn’t what make’s you a good programmer, it’s how easy you make it to understand for people who aren’t fluent and even people who are is what makes you good at it.
Simply, it’s making it look like plain English quickly that make’s you good. Agreed?
matt
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 3:11 PMmaybe in today’s piss weak world of high level languages, ‘runtimes’ and ‘scripting’
…
making it optimal is an important part too!
I’m sick of programmers sacrificing the experience of their end user because they want to make THEIR jobs easier.
yes! write neat code! but don’t sacrifice performance for it!
yes, I’m a programmer by trade. and yes, I work with other people’s code all the time.
and you are right: knowing the syntax of a programming language does NOT make you a programmer.
Your Mate Alex
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 4:02 PMyes, any monkey can code. it’s not that hard and that’s why so many people do it. yet only a very small percentage of people who call themselves programmers are any good.
with few exceptions optimal code rates very lowly on the list of priorities for GOOD programmers. it’s very rare these days you come close to reaching technical limitations of hardware. A good project architecture, understanding the problem, understanding the resources, architecting an appropriate solution and finally coding it in a logical, modular and readable way for future upgrade, these are things that take talent. Write good clean code that isn’t sloppy and only if there is a performance issue, should you look at ways to optimise.
antony ashton has exactly the kind of attitude i would want for someone working for me. matt, you made a general statement that belongs in the past.
matt
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 6:12 PMsure I guess… but every time one of your applications, subroutines, algorithms is run that isn’t as optimal as possible, it uses just a bit more energy than it otherwise could have.
energy usage that is directly contributing to greenhouse gases, global warming, and ultimately, the end of all mankind.
that’s right! coders who don’t optimise as much as possible are responsible for the Queensland floods!! Bob Brown said so…
poedgirl
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:30 PMI just answered this question on Lifehacker…
Like others here, it is my actual job.
Michael Hudson
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 2:56 PMWhat about students? Im studying Software Engineering. +1 to Antony Ashton’s point, clean code and good commenting practice while not necessary make you a better programmer in my opinion.
whitey9999
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 11:37 PMYeh Studying IT at Uni, And our Programming Lecturer said If you need to Comment on it, you dont know it well enough or its not good coding.
And Just for prosperity sake I dont think MVC coding would be able to read from someone not well learned in Java ( Hated that stuff but just learned it)
Tim Barham
Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 6:58 PMIf your lecturer really said that, then it proves the rule “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach” :)
There are many reasons why comments can be an absolute necessity, even for those who are experts and write exceptional code. One primary reason is to explain *why* you are doing something in a particular way, if it is not obvious (and the complexities of coding mean that situation is very often that case).
John Kirkham
Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 11:04 PMWhat a typical out of touch statement, that University lecturers make, for the sake of ‘superiority’.
Comments are the backbone. They don’t exclude. The inform. Compiling is about sharing, even the mistakes. Hide it without comments reeks of a ‘Better than thou’ attitude.
A good coder can be defined by comments, because fixes aren’t stuck in a single stream of bunched up code. Hiding.
Even Jeff Atwood/Coding Horror has said that some of the best Network Admins will run rings around a good coder; NA’s have a magic touch with scripting even he couldn’t compare…
Tim Mead
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 4:11 PMIt is/was my job. Less and less code each day, with more and more management instead.
Erik Hallander
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 5:18 PMCan we exclude people that consider css and html to be code please
Fordi
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 6:13 PMI’m not meant to code as part of my job, but every couple of weeks I find myself doing it. A few hours coding often allows me (and my teams) to be exponentially more productive. I find it very rewarding too.
Alistair Walsh
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 11:34 PMI speak and write english on a daily basis. It is a code.