I’ve retired after a 35 year career in programming.
I knew programmers that could write code I wouldn’t understand. Some of them wrote large, valuable systems. I drew the conclusion that some people think in different ways, some had cognitive gifts different from my own. Some were just better at some things.
But the very best programmers wrote code I could follow. It was dirt simple and well documented. Their code made me feel smart as I maintained it. I could understand what the other person was thinking, how the next section would probably go. We were sharing ideas and architectures, but may have never met!
I knew programmers that could write code I wouldn’t understand. Some of them wrote large, valuable systems. I drew the conclusion that some people think in different ways, some had cognitive gifts different from my own. Some were just better at some things.
But the very best programmers wrote code I could follow. It was dirt simple and well documented. Their code made me feel smart as I maintained it. I could understand what the other person was thinking, how the next section would probably go. We were sharing ideas and architectures, but may have never met!
I really liked working with that second type.