Leave cowboys to Hollywood movies
TL;DR: Write code as a team programmer
-
Readability
-
Unreliable code
-
People Management Issues
-
Lack of coordination
-
Write professional code
-
Use declarative non-cryptic names
Cowboy coders don't follow best practices.
They don't follow team suggestions.
Cowboy coding is generally considered an unprofessional and risky approach to software development because it can lead to code that is hard to maintain and prone to errors.
Cowboy Programmers are good people; however, they cannot work in a group.
# Very simple example
# Compute the sum of two numbers without any structure or best practices.
num1 = input("Enter the first number: ")
num2 = input("Enter the second number: ")
# WARNNING!!!! Don't remove the line below !!!!!
# (Unpleasant comment)
res = num1 + num2 # (No data type checking or error handling)
print("The sum is: " + result) # (No validation or formatting)
# (No good names, no functions, no error handling, no testing,
# no version control, and no structure.)def add_numbers():
try:
firstAddend = float(input("Enter the first number: "))
secondAddend = float(input("Enter the second number: "))
total = firstAddend + secondAddend
return total
except ValueError:
print("Invalid input. Please enter valid numbers.")
return None
def main():
total = add_numbers()
if total is not None:
print("The sum is: {:.2f}".format(sum))
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()[X] Manual
You can set environmental rules to prevent these coding practices and enforce team building.
- Very small personal projects
- Declarative
Software development is teamwork.
Code Smell 06 - Too Clever Programmer
Code Smell 02 - Constants and Magic Numbers
Code Smell 105 - Comedian Methods
Code Smells are my opinion.
Photo by Taylor Brandon on Unsplash
The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but that we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway.
Bernard Avishai
Software Engineering Great Quotes
This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.