Chapter Seven: The Beauty of Borrowed Code

Overview

Painters and writers yearn to be original ”to express their ideas in a new way. In writing code, however, originality is not usually an asset; following corporate standards is.

You are making a big leap when you go from computer school to a corporate programming job. In school you have been passive, for the most part ”learning from the instructor and reading books. (Of course, you ve done some minimal exercises, written simple programs in the computer labs, taken tests, and gotten help when you asked for it.)

Now that you have a corporate programming job, you are expected to be active ”productive enough to justify the nice salary you are earning . In fact, once you ve passed the trainee stage, your company will look on you as the answer-man or answer- woman ; you are not supposed to be going to other programmers for help all the time.

New programmers driving to produce on their first job are well aware that their way of coding might not be the best way. They know their work may be at times clumsy and inefficient. What they probably do not suspect, however, is how powerful they can instantly become simply by borrowing the code of a programmer in their shop who writes elegantly and smartly.

Painters and writers yearn to be original ”to express their ideas in a new way. In writing code, however, originality is not usually an asset; following corporate standards is.