[OT] Extra time spent

[Chris via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 6 June 2014 at 13:24:22 UTC, Dejan Lekic wrote:
> On Wednesday, 4 June 2014 at 17:57:16 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
> wrote:
>> On 6/4/2014 7:59 AM, Dejan Lekic wrote:
>>>
>>> I humbly believe programmer who does not spend spare time 
>>> reading
>>> literature related to his/her work is most likely going to 
>>> lose the job
>>> at some point, as people who DO spend time in their 
>>> self-education will
>>> take the place.
>>>
>>
>> I know from direct observational experience that, depending on 
>> the company, keeping one's job (or even getting one in the 
>> first place) is not always dependent on one's ability to 
>> actually do the job at all.
>>
>> (Heck, I've tutored CS 101 students, and even still: the worst 
>> code I've ever seen by far was NOT beginners, but was 
>> production code written by professionals whose jobs were 
>> nowhere near the chopping block.)
>
> Well, we both know that circumstances can be pretty chaotic in 
> any company. I am not going to defend professionals who write 
> bad code, but I am just saying that I can understand the 
> stress, and all that goes together, especially if the person is 
> senior.
>
> A typical scenario is when (top-level) manager (M) want thing 
> yesterday, and tell senior engineer (SE)
>
> M: How long will it take?
> SE: Well, we did not even analyse the requirements for this 
> feature. Let's spend some time brainstorming this first, and 
> then I will be able to do better estimation.
> M: We have no time for that, and I think you already have all 
> you need.
> SE: OK, 3 days.
> M: What??? We need this thing yesterday!
> SE: Well, I could do a quick hack... It will take 1 day, but we 
> will not have time to test, no time for code quality, etc.
> M: DO IT!!!
> (that "quick hack" code stays there because next week another 
> urgent thing came, and SE never had time to make the code 
> better)
>
> Moral of the story: it is not SE whom we have to blame for bad 
> code, it can easily be the management who made deliberate 
> decision for that...

If people knew how laws, sausages and software are made, there'd 
be a revolution. :)

I remember that the ATMs of a particular bank didn't work for 
several days, because they used an untested patch that contained 
an infinite loop.

>>
>> That said, you're certainly right that continual 
>> self-education is very important (even if one's job isn't on 
>> the line).