[thelist] Re: Developer Ethics (I think)

[Dayn Riegel <evolt@jointhe.net>]

Simple, to a fault actually.

Web Developers should know their stuff -- we all know it is an
ever-changing medium and therefore sometimes you just can't
know it all. That's a part of the pie for us. Heck, any programmer,
coder or what not.

Standards are how it should be judged. As someone pointed out
already, however, the *client* knows nothing of standards so how
can they be the true, educated client...? They can't.

I'm all over the place here, sorry -- behind on a deadline. ;)

Accreditations, awards, certifications and the like mean nothing,
when you come right down to it. Here's why -- back in the early
90's (maybe mid-90's) everyone and their dog was a CNA, or
CNE -- Certified Novel Administrators & Engineers. I personally
knew about 5 of them -- and I wouldn't trust but one to even turn
on or boot up a server.

Just because someone tests well, or rather even pays for a test
is no indication of how well they do in the real world. I know plenty
of MSCE (sp?) and what not and most are decent at what they
do but I again would not consider them to be professionals or
"the best of the best" just because of that cert. I have a good friend
that has no certs and he can out-code, out-program, out-whatever
90% of the people in the work force today. He's my age and makes
about $250K per quarter for his company, that he owns!

I digress...

I believe that it is the responsibility of any company, corporation,
state/county-run entity or what have you to do their homework prior
to hiring -- but they don't. It's also their job to possibly have an
outsider judge the work done, for a fee. I'm asked constantly to
critique others work simply because most know I'm a detail freak.

Last note and then I'll fade back into the woodwork -- I was hired
a few years back to pull a company's nads out of the fire when they
over-promised and under-delivered a serious of Web site templates.
I was brought in for a 6-week contract. I was being paid rather well
so I dropped most everything and started the day after I was hired.

I was working w/ a team of 4 graphics people, 3 server/admins and
I think maybe 4 coders/HTML'ers. They had been working on this
project already for about 6 months. I was handed a few of the templates
to code -- I had to create the templates from the graphic designers
storyboards -- and told to get to work. A week later I was ahead of
everyone else. Why you ask? I knew what I was doing -- they just
did not. There were enough of them to keep things looking busy and
enough copies of Homesite and FrontPage and whatnot to make
things look like work was being done.

My point to all this -- not sure. I got in, did my job, was paid rather
well and moved on. I can't tell you how many hours I spent fixing the
code of others, picking apart server probs and all that. It was just
not sane there. Glad to be gone.

Standards. Nobody knew them. Nobody knew the fundamentals of
good coding to begin w/ and nobody was receptive to learning. About
6 months later the project was taken over by a different department
and everyone was fired.

Man, I need to be quiet now -- I am realizing I have more to say. It'll
be posted for those that want to read it...

Ciao and sorry for the length!

<tip author="Dayn Riegel" content="Sleep">

	Get some. Clears the head. Focuses the mind.

</tip>

-_- D.
...
As always, my posts are at: http://www.nyadinc.com/evolt/