What's your most controversial programming opinion?

Answer 1

UML diagrams are highly overrated

Of course there are useful diagrams e.g. class diagram for the Composite Pattern, but many UML diagrams have absolutely no value.

Answer 2

The only "best practice" you should be using all the time is "Use Your Brain".

Too many people jumping on too many bandwagons and trying to force methods, patterns, frameworks etc onto things that don't warrant them. Just because something is new, or because someone respected has an opinion, doesn't mean it fits all :)

EDIT: Just to clarify - I don't think people should ignore best practices, valued opinions etc. Just that people shouldn't just blindly jump on something without thinking about WHY this "thing" is so great, IS it applicable to what I'm doing, and WHAT benefits/drawbacks does it bring?

Answer 3

I fail to understand why people think that Java is absolutely the best "first" programming language to be taught in universities.

For one, I believe that first programming language should be such that it highlights the need to learn control flow and variables, not objects and syntax

For another, I believe that people who have not had experience in debugging memory leaks in C / C++ cannot fully appreciate what Java brings to the table.

Also the natural progression should be from "how can I do this" to "how can I find the library which does that" and not the other way round.

Answer 4

Your job is to put yourself out of work.

When you're writing software for your employer, any software that you create is to be written in such a way that it can be picked up by any developer and understood with a minimal amount of effort. It is well designed, clearly and consistently written, formatted cleanly, documented where it needs to be, builds daily as expected, checked into the repository, and appropriately versioned.

If you get hit by a bus, laid off, fired, or walk off the job, your employer should be able to replace you on a moment's notice, and the next guy could step into your role, pick up your code and be up and running within a week tops. If he or she can't do that, then you've failed miserably.

Interestingly, I've found that having that goal has made me more valuable to my employers. The more I strive to be disposable, the more valuable I become to them.

Answer 5

The use of hungarian notation should be punished with death.

That should be controversial enough ;)

Answer 6

It's ok to write garbage code once in a while

Sometimes a quick and dirty piece of garbage code is all that is needed to fulfill a particular task. Patterns, ORMs, SRP, whatever... Throw up a Console or Web App, write some inline sql ( feels good ), and blast out the requirement.