Long-held, incorrect programming assumptions [closed]

Answer 1

Smart People are Always Smarter than Me.

I can really beat myself up when I make mistakes and often get told off for self-deprecating. I used to look up in awe at a lot of developers and often assumed that since they knew more than me on X, they knew more than me.

As I have continued to gain experience and meet more people, I have started to realise that oftentimes, while they know more than me in a particular subject, they are not necessarily smarter than me/you.

Moral of the story: Never underestimate what you can bring to the table.

Answer 2

That people knew what they wanted.

For the longest time I thought I would talk with people, they would describe a problem or workflow and I would put it into code and automate it. Turns out every time that happens, what they thought they wanted wasn't actually what they wanted.

Edit: I agree with most of the comments. This is not a technical answer and may not be what the questioner was looking for. It doesn't apply only to programming. I'm sure it's not my longest-held assumption either, but it was the most striking thing I've learned in the 10 short years I've been doing this. I'm sure it was pure naivete on my part but the way my brain is/was wired and the teaching and experiences I had prior to entering the business world led me to believe that I would be doing what I answered; that I would be able to use code and computers to fix people's problems.

I guess this answer is similar to Robin's about non-programmers understanding/caring about what I'm talking about. It's about learning the business as an agile, iterative, interactive process. It's about learning the difference between being a programming-code-monkey and being a software developer. It's about realizing that there is a differnce between the two and that to be really good in the field, it's not just syntax and typing speed.

Edit: This answer is now community-wiki to appease people upset at this answer giving me rep.

Answer 3

"On Error Resume Next" was some kind of error handling

Answer 4

That C++ was somehow intrinsically better than all other languages.

This I received from a friend a couple of years ahead of me in college. I kept it with me for an embarrassingly long time (I'm blushing right now). It was only after working with it for 2 years or so before I could see the cracks for what they were.

No one - and nothing - is perfect, there is always room for improvement.

Answer 5

That a large comment/code ratio is a good thing.

It took me a while to realize that code should be self documenting. Sure, a comment here and there is helpful if the code can't be made clearer or if there's an important reason why something is being done. But, in general, it's better to spend that comment time renaming variables. It's cleaner, clearer and the comments don't get "out of sync" with the code.

Answer 6

I would say that storing the year element of a date as 2 digits was an assumption that afflicted an entire generation of developers. The money that was blown on Y2K was pretty horrific.