What Does a Software Developer Do? Career Overview

The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it’s too late. Image by catalyststuff on Freepik. (Seymour Cray) In software, we rarely have meaningful requirements. ❤

Even if we do, the only measure of success that matters is whether our solution solves the customer’s shifting idea of what their problem is. (Jeff Atwood).

The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim. (Edsger W. Dijkstra) One man’s crappy software is another man’s full-time job. (Jessica Gaston) It’s a curious thing about our industry: not only do we not learn from our mistakes, but we also don’t learn from our successes. (Keith Braithwaite)

Where  👀 friends have access to your private members. (Gavin Russell Baker) Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter. 

Do you like coding or just stealing works?

(Eric Raymond) Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight. (Bill Gates) There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. (Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977)

Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the ‘most reliable Windows ever.’ 

To me, this is like saying that asparagus is ‘the most articulate vegetable ever.’ (Dave Barry) One man’s crappy software is another man’s full-time job. (Jessica Gaston) Windows NT addresses 2 Gigabytes of RAM, which is more than any application will ever need. (Microsoft, on the development of Windows NT, 1992) I don’t care if it works on your machine! We are not shipping your machine! Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right. If everything did, you’d be out of a job. 

1. Mosher’s Law 
2. Software Engineering
3. Vidiu Platon

The only people who have anything to fear from free software are those whose products are worth even less. (David Emery) 

Why to choose Blogger?

It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC. As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. (E. W. Dijkstra)

First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a programming style. 

Then forget all that and just hack. (George Carrette) Java is, in many ways, C++–. (Michael Feldman) Good programmers use their brains.

But good guidelines save us having to think out every case. (Francis Glassborow) In software, we rarely have meaningful requirements. 

Even if we do, the only measure of success that matters is whether our solution solves the customer’s shifting idea of what their problem is. (Jeff Atwood) But what is it good for? 

If McDonalds were run like a software company, one out of every hundred Big Macs would give you food poisoning, and the response would be, ‘We’re sorry, here’s a coupon for two more.’ (Mark Minasi)

It’s not a bug – it’s an undocumented feature. (Anonymous) Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline. (Bill Clinton) There are only two industries that refer to their customers as ‘users’. (Edward Tufte)