What To Do Right As a New Programmer?

globeadue writes "My company just tagged me for full time App Dev — I've essentially never coded for money, but the last 3 years of support desk gives me the business sense to know the environment I'll be coding for. Now my company will be training me, so I think the technical side of things will be covered, what I'm looking for is best practices, habits I should/shouldn't develop, etc as I take on my new craft."

Goto is good

[corsec67]

Along with the ? : ternary opp.

Code that is hard to read means job security.

The IOCCC [ioccc.org] is a good place to learn style.

Sql Injection is a good thing. You don't need to escape user data before send it to the DB, users never do anything bad.

(Go ahead and mod me troll, I can take the hit. Note that this is actually a list of things NOT to do. Except goto is sometimes useful, for breaking out of a few layers of loops/blocks.)

Get out now

[Anonymous Coward]

Get out, now, for the love of God, while you still can.

Er

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes I wonder if the editors eyer bother checking the firehose tags for "tvpo" or "tvpoinsummarv".

Advice to increase productivity.

[radarsat1]

Don't read Slashdot at work. :)

Re:Always....

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

yeah, wheels suck. Instead create a circle that can be attached to a vehicle in such a manner that it allows the circle to roll while the vehicle moves in a straight line. And don't forget to give it descriptive name like

circleForVehicleToMoveBetterThanDraggingWouldNormallyAllow

Re:Goto is good

[TheRealMindChild]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/goto.png [xkcd.com]

Moral of the story: Even when you think a goto is OK, you will still get eaten by a dinosaur.

Re:Go with the flow

[Anonymous Coward]

Tip: Get together with your coworkers after work -- hit a bar on Thursday/Friday night, loosen up, relax, talk shit about your managers, etc. Find out what people do outside of work. Ask the girls if they shave their pussy, the guys if they shave their balls. If you're in the bathroom taking a piss together, compliment them on their cock. Little things like that make the work environment easier and the coding more fun.

Learn by example

[Repton]

1. Read The Daily WTF [thedailywtf.com]. 2. Don't do that.

Re:Goto is good

[actionbastard]

Calculon: What? Have you got an extra 'GOTO 10" line? Look. I'm programmed to be very busy. If you can't heat water to 212 degress, I'm not interested!

Re:Go with the flow

[Whiteox]

On the other hand, there are some universal rules:

        * Plan/Design everything
        * Document everything
        * Version control everything
        * Test everything
        * Deny everything

Don't forget:
        * Lots of GOTOs
        * Delete those annoying REM statements
        * Use weird, arcane variable names like 'ORGO' and 'FTOOMSH'

Good Luck!

Goto is good, gosub is better

[TiggertheMad]

like ? leave_alone : ;

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Get out now

[martin-boundary]

Yeah, those book recommendations are cook books!

Re:Go with the flow

[Anonymous Coward]

For the complete list see how to write unmaintainable code at:

http://mindprod.com/jgloss/unmain.html

New Year's Eve Party

[bencollier]

Wouldn't have been the Millennium would it? :-)

Re:Go with the flow

[kaizokuace]

also, don't boink the boss's daughter for at least 3 weeks!

Clothing makes the programmer

[wvwalt]

You'll have to upgrade your wardrobe if you're moving from tech support to programming. For example, your tennis shoes need to be thoroughly cleaned. Toss out the ripped AE jeans and get Levis. A little facial hair wouldn't hurt, just make sure it's a little shaggy around the edges. And don't forget to start wearing your hair longer. You'll also need a trademark, like suspenders or orange sneakers, or maybe chewing tobacco and always walking around with a cup in your hand. Use one drawer of your desk for late-night snacks. Toss out all the trail mix and stock up on twinkies (Hostess - not the generic ones). Ho-hos are okay on Fridays, but generally stick with the Twinkies. On a more serious note, don't try to reinvent the wheel. Find some similar code that someone else on the team has written and use that as a starting point. Never start from scratch.

Code in C... and nothing else...

[GNUPublicLicense]

Learn C (need to understand the computer memory model), and that's it. All the rest is bullsh... and fashionable stuff.

Some simple advice

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember "Profanity is the one language all programmers understand".

Re:Go with the flow

[TheRaven64]

Please try to keep up with technology trends. Conditional COMEFROM is now called 'Aspect Oriented Programming.'

Some hints

[Meowfaceman]

Based on my experience, here's what you should become proficient in:

- Updating monolithic systems with functionality they were never meant for.
- Having lots of meetings. Lots and lots of meetings.
- Looking busy without actually being busy.
- Adding dots, commas, buzzwords and excessively overengineered language to technical documents.
- Taking really long lunches without anybody noticing.
- Getting told that you can't certain technologies because they're too new, and instead using even newer technologies because they were paid for.

That's about all I got. No, what? Of course I love my job. Why do you say that?