Are you Experienced Programmer

What do you think any programmer, no matter how experienced,can create complex programs without any errors on the first attempt.

Hi there,

As per me, if one programmer i.e highly experienced and he (or she) dont know the requirement properly, he (or she)will missed out some thing. so requiremt should be always  clear, if its clear then it depends on the programmer that how they can make it without bug. means domian knowledge i.e. very important.

Regards,
Arshad
 

It is possible, even for programmers that do not have a lot of experience, to write a complex program with little or no errors. If an experienced programmer can do it, then the same programmer is more likely to do it when they don't have much experience. Experience is not the primary determination of whether it is possible; the primary determination is the programmer's ability to be methodical. As Arshad indicates, one part of being methodical is understanding the requirements, but being methodical also means thinking about what will happen and won't happen and ensuring that the code will work the way it needs to. Some people can do that better than others.

Programming (coding) is a different animal. It is not like writing a story where you know the output while you are writing. Most of the code needs to compiled, run and test the application. If an application is complex, chances are, no mater who write the code (unless you have written same code previously), you will not get it right. You will need testing. You will miss out something.

There is a reason we allocate between 20% to 30% of application development time to testing phase only. A good code also mean how good you are at testing. You need to know how to test your code effectively.

Being a good coder does not mean getting problem solved in first attempt. It is all about getting requirements right as Arshad pointed out and do it properly. I can solve same problem in multiple ways but the best coder gets the most optimized solution.

Look at it this way. The more complex that a program is, the more important that it be written with minimal errors. The more complex that a program is, the greater the chance for errors is and therefore the more problems there will be during testing and implementation.


There are companies such as Yahoo that think that bugs are inevitable; that their software is so huge because they have many servers that errors are expected. Their software however is not as complex as other software; they just don't have careful programmers. Skype is another company with sloppy programmers.


Software such as the systems used for space ships and satellites is sometimes more complex than Yahoo and Skype yet they can cause catastrophic problems if they have bugs.


It does take more time to write a program that has few or no errors the first time, but the total development time is usually less since the time to test is much shorter.