[OT] Strong Testing Skills vs Strong Debugging Skills
Hi! Found myself wondering, would "Strong Debugging Skills" on job requirements mean you need firefighters(maintenance oriented devs) vis-a-vis "Strong Testing Skills" that you need software designers(build it from the bottoms up... right, devs). Does the language used imply what you are required to do, or is it just an indication of the kind of the boss or HR Department you'll be dealing with. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kore Francis Njenga, IT Consultant & Software Developer, Indra ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Running and Walking are only breaths apart.
I guess context matters. If it's a brand new system, then you probably need dev's with experience and who can design the new system with all the client's current and future requirements in mind. If you need devs to integrate with a variety of systems (esp. old legacy enterprise systems), then maybe you need dev's with experience with various environments, systems, hardware etc. Where the ability to see multiple angles of a certain problem are more valuable than being able to design the perfect interface. Then again, I'm just typing off the top of my head so maybe I'm completely way off. Regards, John K. On 30 March 2015 at 15:59, Francis Njenga via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
Hi!
Found myself wondering, would "Strong Debugging Skills" on job requirements mean you need firefighters(maintenance oriented devs) vis-a-vis "Strong Testing Skills" that you need software designers(build it from the bottoms up... right, devs).
Does the language used imply what you are required to do, or is it just an indication of the kind of the boss or HR Department you'll be dealing with.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kore Francis Njenga, IT Consultant & Software Developer, Indra
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Running and Walking are only breaths apart.
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In my experience Debugging is an absolutely critical skill that is *never* taught in schools. The importance of debugging lies in the fact most of the software work you do in most companies involves maintaining other people's code and not writing applications from scratch. Similar sentiments are expressed in this article quite well, see the first point: https://medium.com/@cramforce/ive-lately-been-thinking-about-what-patterns-c... Testing on the other hand depends at times on your tool sets. Dynamically typed languages (Ruby, Python, JavaScript, etc) tend to lend themselves to more rigorous testing procedures, some of which could be avoided with the use of statically typed languages (C++, JAVA, C#, Erlang, Go, etc). It is said that a compiler takes care of a fairly large amount of errors that can only be detected at runtime when using language interpreters, hence the need for carrying out automated test suites in those cases. Hope I haven't veered off point too much? Martin. On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 6:04 PM, John K. via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
I guess context matters. If it's a brand new system, then you probably need dev's with experience and who can design the new system with all the client's current and future requirements in mind. If you need devs to integrate with a variety of systems (esp. old legacy enterprise systems), then maybe you need dev's with experience with various environments, systems, hardware etc. Where the ability to see multiple angles of a certain problem are more valuable than being able to design the perfect interface.
Then again, I'm just typing off the top of my head so maybe I'm completely way off.
Regards, John K.
On 30 March 2015 at 15:59, Francis Njenga via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
Hi!
Found myself wondering, would "Strong Debugging Skills" on job requirements mean you need firefighters(maintenance oriented devs) vis-a-vis "Strong Testing Skills" that you need software designers(build it from the bottoms up... right, devs).
Does the language used imply what you are required to do, or is it just an indication of the kind of the boss or HR Department you'll be dealing with.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kore Francis Njenga, IT Consultant & Software Developer, Indra
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Running and Walking are only breaths apart.
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The link has been enlightening. I especially liked the "Be really good at reading code" part. I guess the viscera of the question is would great regression tests be better than great debugging tools in terms of software maintenance? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kore Francis Njenga, IT Consultant & Software Developer, Indra Co. LTD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Running and Walking are only breaths apart. On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 9:18 AM, Martin Akolo Chiteri via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
In my experience Debugging is an absolutely critical skill that is *never* taught in schools. The importance of debugging lies in the fact most of the software work you do in most companies involves maintaining other people's code and not writing applications from scratch. Similar sentiments are expressed in this article quite well, see the first point: https://medium.com/@cramforce/ive-lately-been-thinking-about-what-patterns-c...
Testing on the other hand depends at times on your tool sets. Dynamically typed languages (Ruby, Python, JavaScript, etc) tend to lend themselves to more rigorous testing procedures, some of which could be avoided with the use of statically typed languages (C++, JAVA, C#, Erlang, Go, etc). It is said that a compiler takes care of a fairly large amount of errors that can only be detected at runtime when using language interpreters, hence the need for carrying out automated test suites in those cases.
Hope I haven't veered off point too much?
Martin.
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 6:04 PM, John K. via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
I guess context matters. If it's a brand new system, then you probably need dev's with experience and who can design the new system with all the client's current and future requirements in mind. If you need devs to integrate with a variety of systems (esp. old legacy enterprise systems), then maybe you need dev's with experience with various environments, systems, hardware etc. Where the ability to see multiple angles of a certain problem are more valuable than being able to design the perfect interface.
Then again, I'm just typing off the top of my head so maybe I'm completely way off.
Regards, John K.
On 30 March 2015 at 15:59, Francis Njenga via skunkworks < skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:
Hi!
Found myself wondering, would "Strong Debugging Skills" on job requirements mean you need firefighters(maintenance oriented devs) vis-a-vis "Strong Testing Skills" that you need software designers(build it from the bottoms up... right, devs).
Does the language used imply what you are required to do, or is it just an indication of the kind of the boss or HR Department you'll be dealing with.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kore Francis Njenga, IT Consultant & Software Developer, Indra
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Running and Walking are only breaths apart.
_______________________________________________ skunkworks mailing list skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke ------------ List info, subscribe/unsubscribe http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------
Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
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Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
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participants (3)
-
Francis Njenga -
John K. -
Martin Akolo Chiteri