关于程序员好坏差异的一个鲜为人知的秘密

刚才在csdn主页上看到一个《一些鲜为人知的编程事实》的文章。看到这个文章非常感同身受阿。闲话不多说，还是把原文转过来吧，它比我的废话有价值，哈哈。

 

原文：

 

My experience as a programmer  has taught me a few things about writing software. Here are some things that people might find surprising about writing code:

• A programmer spends about 10-20% of his time writing code, and most programmers write about 10-12 lines of code per day that goes into the final product, regardless of their skill level. Good programmers spend much of the other 90% thinking, researching, and experimenting to find the best design. Bad programmers spend much of that 90% debugging code by randomly making changes and seeing if they work.
  “A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer.” –Bill Gates
• A good programmer is ten times more productive than an average programmer. A great programmer is 20-100 times more productive than the average. This is not an exaggeration – studies since the 1960′s have consistently shown this. A bad programmer is not just unproductive – he will not only not get any work done, but create a lot of work and headaches for others to fix.
• Great programmers spend little of their time writing code – at least code that ends up in the final product. Programmers who spend much of their time writing code are too lazy, too ignorant, or too arrogant to find existing solutions to old problems. Great programmers are masters at recognizing and reusing common patterns. Good programmers are not afraid to refactor (rewrite) their code constantly to reach the ideal design. Bad programmers write code which lacks conceptual integrity, non-redundancy, hierarchy, and patterns, and so is very difficult to refactor. It’s easier to throw away bad code and start over than to change it.
• Software obeys the laws of entropy, like everything else. Continuous change leads to software rot, which erodes the conceptual integrity of the original design. Software rot is unavoidable, but programmers who fail to take conceptual integrity into consideration create software that rots so so fast that it becomes worthless before it is even completed. Entropic failure of conceptual integrity is probably the most common reason for software project failure. (The second most common reason is delivering something other than what the customer wanted.) Software rot slows down progress exponentially, so many projects face exploding timelines and budgets before they are killed.
• A 2004 study found that most software projects (51%) will fail in a critical aspect, and 15% will fail totally. This is an improvement since 1994, when 31% failed.
• Although most software is made by teams , it is not a democratic activity. Usually, just one person is responsible for the design, and the rest of the team fills in the details.
• Programming is hard work. It’s an intense mental activity. Good programmers think about their work 24/7. They write their most important code in the shower and in their dreams. Because the most important work is done away from a keyboard, software projects cannot be accelerated by spending more time in the office or adding more people to a project .

 

译文

 

David Veksler 曾发表过一篇博文《Some lesser-known truths about programming 》，列出了一些鲜为人知的编程事实，这些事实是什么呢？酷壳 个人网站楼主陈皓对此文进行了翻译 ，全文如下：

我的程序员经历让我明白了一些关于软件开发的事情。下面是一些在编程中可能会让人感到诧异的事情：

1. 一个程序员用了大约只用了10%-20%的时间来编码，而且大多数程序员，无论他的水平如何，其平均每天只有10-12行的代码 最终会进入最终的软件产品中。这是因为，优秀的程序员 会花费90%的时间来思考、调查、研究最佳的设计。而糟糕的程序员 则会花费90%的时间来调试代码，并随意地改动代码并尝试让代码工作起来。

“A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer.” –Bill Gates

“一个优秀的车工其工资是一个普通车工的好几倍，但是一个优秀程序员写出来的代码比一个普通程序员要值钱一万倍。——比尔盖茨”

2. 一个好的程序员比一个普通的程序员多十倍的生产率。而一个优秀的程序员的生产率则比普通程序员多20-100倍。这并不是夸张 （自从上世纪60年代的研究一直表明这是一个事实）。一个糟糕的程序员并不只是没有产出的——他们并不仅是完成不不工作，而且还会制造出大量的让别人头痛并要去解决的麻烦。

3. 优秀的程序员花少量的时间写代码——那些代码都会出现在最终的产品中。那些花大量的时间写代码的程序员其实是很懒惰、很无知，或是很自大的，以至于不能使 用已经存在了的解决方案来解决已有的问题。优秀的程序员精通于对通用模式的识别和重用。好的程序员并不害怕持续地重构/重写自己的代码，直到达到最理想的 方案。糟糕的程序员的代码基本上都缺少概念一致性，代码冗长，缺少层次和模式，所以，也就很难被重构。所以，重写他们的代码要比重构他们的代码要容易得 多。

4. 软件和其它一切事物一样，都遵循着一致性规则。持续得更改只会让软件变成一潭烂泥，其破坏了原始设计的概念一致性。软件产品变成泥沼是不可避免的事情，但 是因为程序员不考虑软件概念一致性而导致软件产品更为快速地成为泥沼，这种速度快得可能会在软件产品还没有完成时，软件产品已经变得没有价值。设计概念一 致性的失败通常都会导致软件项目的失败（而第二大导致软件项目失败的原因则是发布的软件并不是用户想要的）。软件变成烂泥的速度正在呈指数级下降，太多的 项目在被完结前都面临着激增的时间和成本。

5. 一个 2004 研究报告 指出，大多数的软件项目 (51%) 都会在关键环节出问题。而15%的项目则是完全失败，当然，这比1994年有了很大的进步，当时完全失败的项目是31%。

6. 虽然，几乎所有的软件产品都有些开发团队，但其并不是民主的。通常，只有一个人负责设计，而剩下的人去实现细节。

7. 编程是一个辛苦的工作。其实是一个剧烈的脑力劳动。好的程序员24×7地在思考他们的工作，他们一般都在洗澡和梦中编写软件中最重要的代码。因为最重要的工作只能在键盘之外完成，软件项目不可能因为加班或是加人 来加快进度。