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Search - "naming conventions"
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i was asked to start a new project, and another dev was brought onto the team shortly after. as soon as he joined, straight away he started an entirely new project and worked on it through the whole weekend, then came back on monday and just sort of pasted his files into/over the code i had already started and was working on, with no regard for folder structure or naming conventions or anything. his work was even split between 2 almost identically named namespaces (both of which were completely different to the existing project namespace) and his shit broke everything i did in the first place. the cherry on top is that none of his work was even functional, it was purely dummy/mockup web pages that weren't linked to any sort of backend.
when i asked him wtf he thought he was doing, he kept saying "i didnt touch your code" and refused to acknowledge that pasting a project over a different project can break stuff, then said it "wasn't his fault that i'm slow and not keeping up". and just kept saying vague bullshit about how i have to do it his way because he "has more experience"
he had no idea what my previous experience was, he had never asked and i had never told him, he just decided that he had more experience than me.
i dug through the shit and found out that he didn't just break my work, he had actually purposely deleted it when he realised it was getting in the way of his spaghetti. i showed him the commit and confronted him with it and all the cunt said was "well the good news is, you know the fix" and kept trying to dismiss me in the most disrespectful ways he could think of. i eventually snapped at him (long overdue at this point) and told him that any experienced developer would not commit code that didn't even fucking compile, especially when they're the one who broke it, and that he needs to grow up. of course he then complained that i was being unprofessional.
our manager decided we should go with fuckfaces """code""" without even looking at the work either of us had done, purely because fuckface is older than me and that's how the world works.
in the end i just told my manager that i refuse to work with the guy and he could either take him or me off the project (guess who he picked) or i quit.
after a few months of the guy failing to deliver any of even the basic functionality that was asked for, the entire project got scrapped, and the dude just quit once everyone realised he was literally just larping as an experienced dev but couldn't accomplish simple tasks.
i never received an apology from anybody involved.5 -
Forgive me Linus for I have sinned. It has been since the dawn of time since my last confession.
I hardcoded naming conventions for file names into a script that is used to remove incorrect lines of text that are created during our process to create the files that we send out so that healthcare claims get paid correctly and copy and pasted the code for each new state’s health plan since the users(who are supposed to be technically inclined as they’re in IT as support analysts) can barely figure out how to set up the excel file to remove the lines. There are now 18 files of the same python script with different US States’ names.2 -
I'm going to confess: I am the type of developer that creates the ExcruciatinglyLongAndSpecificClassNameObject with the UtterlyDetailedExplanationMethod. It's just a thing I keep doing, despite voiced frustrations from people I've worked with. It just feels right in the mindset of self-documenting code
And while I acknowledge this isn't a flawless process, I see no other way around without losing information. I've tried alternatives, but everything feels like trading one issue for another:
- Abbreviations work as long as they are well known (XML, HTML, ...). As soon as you add your own (even if they make sense in the business context) you can bet your ass someone is going to have no idea what you're talking about. Even remembering your own shit is difficult after X months.
- Removing redundant naming seems fine until it isn't redundant anymore (like when a feature with similar traits gets added). and you can bet your ass no-one is going to refactor the existing part to specify how it differs from the newly added stuff.
- Moving details to namespaces is IMO just moving the problem and pretending it doesn't exist. Also have had folks that just auto-include namespaces in VS without looking if they need the class from namespaceA or namespaceB and then proceed to complain why it doesn't compile.
So, since I am out of ideas, I'd like to ask you folks: Is it possible to reduce class/method name lengths without losing information? Or is self-documenting code just an ideal I'm trying too hard to achieve? Or are long names not a problem at all? I'm looking forward to your answers.12