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Re: TIMTOWTDI, but enough rope to hang yourself?

by the_slycer (Chaplain)
on Aug 31, 2001 at 23:00 UTC ( [id://109497]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to TIMTOWTDI, but enough rope to hang yourself?

I am speaking from very little experience here, as I have never worked on a perl project with another person - always solo

However, I think that every project (be it perl, or one of the more business type projects) needs a plan in order to succeed. Included in the plan should be guidelines as to what is accepted for the results you are trying to get.

Did that make any sense? I think not, let me try to explain further. On a non-code type project (and no I am not a project-manager) there is always a set goal. In order to achieve this goal with the best possible results, there must be a plan put in place. In that plan, there are often rules included - such as when expenses need to be handed in (weekly, monthly, end of project), and when documentation is expected by. Often, there is a template so that all the documentation for each portion of what each team member is working on looks and feels the same. These are just guidelines that I have come across in my non-code projects.

I feel that the same concepts can be applied to code type projects as well. There need to be guidelines, for example, any web stuff, we use CGI, we don't use Lingua::Romana::Perligata, we comment all subroutines with an explanation etc.. If the guidelines are well enough defined at the start of the project, the code should be "standard" enough in the group that anybody can look and see what the other person is doing. This is probably especially important for a large coding effort.

In this method, I think that the freedom of perl will be somewhat negated by the restrictions placed on the project, in this case, that's not a bad thing at all.

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(pmas) Re: TIMTOWTDI, but enough rope to hang yourself?
by pmas (Hermit) on Aug 31, 2001 at 23:44 UTC
    Sure we use CGI, obviously. I am not talking about obvious decisions, but more about less obvious, allowed by perl standard. I.e. to make group to use use strict I needed to sneek it in: add it to include what is used by others - and my colleague fixed the code only after it broke, she complained that my incude is wrong, and I suggested I'll add my to all her variables for her.

    If you never worked in team, you'll never experienced feeling when your colleague is doing something wrong what you never thought doing yourself for obvious reasons, and stlii cannot to anything about it - complaining about wrong style to your boss is out of question, right?

    About having plan: Dilbert cartoon: Dilbert ask Poity-Haired Boss: "In order to write project plan, I need to know our strategy". And PHB answers: "My strategy is make you to write a plan." ;-)

    So you can ask to have a plan, it sounds nice in theory. In real life, your boss is busy to handle multiple projects, meetings and all, and plan is to make customers happy ASAP. Then you are voting on non-obvious design decisions... And we all know how voting system failed BIG TIME last time...;-)

    Guidelines... I was just meditating that if perl was less flexible, less guidelines will be required. Because less effort to persuade your boss about that guidelines needs to be will be needed. And all large coding effort start from small efforts - often started by people who are just starting and do not know how to handle big projects at all.

    Probably big part of my problem is I am part of a project started before I came on board, and I was called in for my experience in big projects, but other have longer experience in perl (although less in application development), and it is also in university environment where freedom to create as you wish is more important than discipline to work in team is in industry.

    I am having good time learning perl, I do love CPAN and PM, I am just afraid the time when I will need to fix some of the code being written...

    pmas
    To make errors is human. But to make million errors per second, you need a computer.

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