Defensive Programming
Defensive Programming is usually thought of as a software quality technique but I have another use for the term. Defensive Programming happens when you are dealing with two or more modules of code that interact with one another in some way and the modules are written by different developers. That’s the programming part. The defensive part happens when something is wrong and each of the developers blames the other for the as yet unknown problem because they are covering their ass, have low self esteem, are lazy, are arrogant, you fill in the blank. This drives me nuts. Let’s just collaborate to solve the f*ing problem. Software has bugs. It’s fundamental. If the defensive programmer spent half of the time they spent pointing the finger at someone else fixing bugs in their own code we’d all be better off.
i think the defensive programmer also should spend time in ninja training.
By the way, a defensive programmer’s goal is to fix the problem and not finger pointing. The finger pointing programmer is usually not a defensive programmer but rather a loud one.
Comment by peterv — February 13, 2009 @ 8:19 pm