[plt-scheme] Perplexed Programmers

Geoffrey S. Knauth wrote:
> On Aug 25, 2007, at 23:24, Richard Cleis wrote:
>> I fully admit that I work in an environment that is less 
>> job-threatening than others.  Hopefully, that doesn't disqualify me 
>> from asking: Do you work in your described scenario?  How many people 
>> do you know of that do?
>
> I worked at a place where meeting deadlines was considered far more 
> important than writing good code.  If the code was a mess but somehow 
> things worked and delivery was on time, that was OK, especially since 
> the code was likely to evolve or be discarded within a couple of years 
> anyway.  To suggest that something should really take longer initially 
> so that it could be done carefully did nothing to enhance one's 
> career.  Copy/paste was encouraged.
>
I worked at a place that also valued deadlines but this was not the 
reason for a lack of good code. Any good code that was written was 
eventually replaced by mediocre/bad code simply because there were more 
bad programmers than good programmers. When some of my co-workers became 
aware of my eventual resignation they noted "jon, what are we going to 
do with your code? its just going to disappear when you leave." So even 
when I could take time to carefully plan some software I felt like it 
wouldn't matter eventually..