The Uncomfortable Truth of Bad Code

The Uncomfortable Truth of Bad Code

I have some scary examples for you, gathered throughout many years on maintenance and on large modernization projects. Examples of code so indescribably bad that it's difficult to understand how it came to ever exist. These (anonymized) examples have been analyzed in order to determine how they came to be. Participate in this presentation so that you can avoid making the same mistakes in your next development project. ...or live with the misconception that only bad developers make bad code.

Stian Grenborgen, Sopra Steria

Stian Grenborgen is an experienced Java programmer and software architect working for Sopra Steria. He has worked on large and critical systems in the Norwegian government and with infrastructurally crucial systems for the financial sector. He takes a special interest in computer interface design both in his professional capacity and in his spare time. Although a popular speaker at JavaZone, this is his first time presenting at Jfokus.

[nigelsotelo]

This was interesting, I think it touched on some of the key causes. Ultimately there's no recipe for writing good software, it's a constant balancing act using intuition and experience to judge trade-offs.

[rogerbennett]

This is uncomfortable, but I wouldn't call it truth.

[samuellourenco]

People should not try to rewrite what they don't understand. So, it was not entirely the speaker's fault. The lack of documentation was what created the unnecessary change in the code.

[thogameskanaal]

Don't hire an enterprise developer if you care about intuitive and usable code, as well as human dignity and not having to deal with a narcissist developer who actively goes against the predetermined specification, because they are too smart for that, and refuses to accept feedback because they are going to get a job at Google and tell you all about why you won't.
(This actually happened and I hope the guy got what he deserved
I don't even want to work at Google, lol)

[dlwatib]

I'm not sure why anybody should be taking advice from this admittedly bad programmer. OTOH, if you are committed to writing in Java, you're automatically committed to writing bad code, so have at it.