Re: May the Fourth be with you

David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Not for me. I consistently wrote code that never crashes, even
when given grossly malformed input.

Then what in hell are you doing proof-reading depositions for
a living?

Well, I'm good at *that*, too.

Good question. I have several plausible good answers. Pick zero
or more:

* I'm an above-average programmer, but hardly unique. Several
thousand people in India are at least as good, and willing to
work long hours for less than US minimum wage.

* I can't get a security clearance. IT jobs requiring a clearance are
the majority of IT jobs that haven't been outsourced.

* Employers are looking for someone younger. They (correctly) assume
that someone my age wouldn't be amenable to, "The salary is poor,
and the hours long, but just think of the experience! And what
you'll be able to add to your resume! And you'll get a hefty raise
next year -- or the year after for sure. Or the year after that at
the latest (unless we instead choose to replace you with someone
even younger and cheaper after a couple years)."

* I'm not willing to relocate.

* I'm not willing to work for any goverment at any level.

* I'm not willing to work on a Microsoft platform, except as an end
user who doesn't need to look under the hood.

* I'm not willing to work in COBOL.

* In recent years I happened to specialize in a currently out-of-favor
programming language (MUMPS). Employers don't care that I either
already know or can quickly learn their preferred language -- they
want someone with recent professional experience in that language.

* I have no college degree. This is increasingly important to
employers. And there's a glut of young people with CS or similar
degrees.

You are unique in the history of the field ...

Not even close. I'm in the top ten percent of programmers, but not
the top one percent. I turn out rock-solid code, on any reasonable
deadline, but not at lightning speed.

Yep, it's easy if you have the wit to deal with all possible cases
in all those things. You're absolutely right. Unfortunately those
cases multiply, and there are billions of possibilities for some of
them.

It's only ones and zeros. It's really not that difficult to cover
all cases. It helps to make a chart, to keep track. As Seth pointed
out, it's not necessary to do something wonderfully brilliant with all
possible inputs. It's sufficient to trap badly formatted inputs and
generate a useful error message rather than swallowing the rancid data
and promptly barfing all over the LAN.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
.

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