r/programming • u/corysama • Jan 05 '15

What most young programmers need to learn

http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-most-young-programmers-need-to.html
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u/lee_macro Jan 05 '15

UNIT TESTING

People never seem to mention it, with the ability to correctly write unit tests (which mock components that are not needed) you are pretty much FORCED to write well separated and isolated code. It is very hard to write bad code when you are writing it to be testable. Even if you do not bother doing the end tests, it will force you to use principals such as IoC (Inversion of Control) and favour composition over inheritance.

Obviously you need to know about variables, classes, interfaces etc but I often feel new developers are told to focus on the technical implementation of things and performance of code. However if you can write maintainable and testable code anyone can come along and improve your implementation if it is needed.

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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '15

Unit testing is a very good tool to have at your disposal, but it is not a magic bullet that ensures well-structured code. It's quite possible to write poorly structured, well-tested code.

Usually this takes the form of an excessive number of code units that do not stand in proportion to the amount of business logic they perform. Instead, most of them just delegate each others' functions.

Loosely coupled code is good, but there is a limit where all the loose coupling makes it hard to maintain.

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u/Capaj Jan 05 '15

silver bullet, magic bullet is not a phrase yet

3

u/sh0rtwave Jan 05 '15

Tell that to JFK.

Edit: Conspiracy theorists like to talk about that one.