As many of you know, there are a LOT of bad developers out there. Not that I always write the best and cleanest code out there, but some of the stuff I've had to work on has just been hideous.

So my question is, why are there so many bad developers out there? Is it just poor self-education, laziness, lack of interest, poor discipline, stupidity?

And the problem only seems to be getting worse. The need for development is expanding at an ever increasing rate, and I guess it's just panic, and the fact that it takes a good developer to recognize a good developer: people are increasingly being hired by IT managers, clerks, and other weenies that wouldn't know good code if it sat up and spat on them.

The solution: ?

Is it just poor self-education, laziness, lack of interest, poor discipline, stupidity?

For me, it's more the effect of peoples not really interested by it, that started off because "there was a demand in this branch".
I have worked with passionate people, who did not followed a specific cursus, who where excellent coders.
I have worked with developers who sole dream was to get out of the office at 17:00, and don't give 1 afterthought about code portability and "best practices"
But those had passed grades, and had good one. It was just that they where in the business to make money, nothing else...

I see this mostly as another effect of the "get rich quick" scheme.
I don't see no way of stopping it honestly, except by educating the peoples that would engage them.
First, a coding test should be asked, and it should be mandatory.
Then, a senior programmer should be doing the interview.

Every time I was in front of a manager who was not a coder, I was feeling judged on my appearance. Not in my favor...

Each time I was reviewed by a programmer, we ended the discussions about that language, this methodology, and various famous programming quotes....
And ended up being hired :-)

I hate to reply like this (because I am need of something very basic, but lacking the time for it) but the best way is to:

DIY

Do it yourself is the cure for it all
Hth

I was feeling judged on my appearance. Not in my favor...

It's ok, I'm sure your code is beautiful

Do it yourself is the cure for it all

No it's not, and that's not the point here...

We are (or at least, I am...) talking about being hired to make an existing application/script evolution.
A programing unaware user that realizes his own tools is good, ok.
But if you, as a professional developer, have to extend it, this will be (about 90% of the time) a real nightmare.

Because a DIY user who just started programming cannot instinctively and without a bit of mentoring go on the right path, and this will lead to difficulties
1) to read his code
2) to modify the flow of his program to do what is needed to be done
3) it will cripple your reputation, because a simple task could take way more time to be done (if even be finished) that it should have

And for those reason, as far as I encourage the DIY approach, I say that if I was given the choice, I would refuse to work on an application (or script) that have been started as a DIY project.

I would accept it only if
1) A real, proper, "cahier des charges" (in French) or roadmap/feature map (I don't know the English word for it) would be wrote first
2) The application was rewrote

Flaw in the basic design of any application can be literraly daedly for the evolution of an application.

It's ok, I'm sure your code is beautiful

:-D
I was not talking about my code, but my waist line....

The only thing I could say at this point is most likely due to revenge for one reason or another...

ya ever get the feeling that most of 'us' are here for the money, and not for the knowledge?

Pretty bad if you ask me.

-Brian

Pretty bad if you ask me.

Yeah, but at the same time, we are living in a world that promote this as a way of living. And that's precisely the reason I felt good about this place, right here.
Most of the peoples I have talked with here are not here to become a super affiliate. Many of them are skilled in their domain, and just glad to help and do some mentoring, and it's simply something I love.

I did not learned programing in a school, and did not attended college.
I've learned my job with mentors who did college, but where happy to spread their knowledge, and I love to do the same.
It always have been rare, but you still find gems, amongst all those peoples.

And I like to keep in memory a quote of an ex-colleague of mine, which at 21 said to me:

I hate my school comrades, they are all posers that imagine themselves like the next Bill Gates, and think they will earn 150'000 $ per years on their first job

He was, and still is, doing his college part time, working as an Oracle developer in a small firm.

Quite frankly, and I am probably one of those you are talking about, the problem is getting someone to help you learn.

It is very difficult to get information. Yes, I know there is tons on the internet, but if you don't understand what you are reading, it's hard to learn.

And when you ask for help, most of the time you are conidered a waste of time. I have only designed 6 websites, but the look great and I get nothing but compliments on them.

I don't know a lick of code; any code. And I have nobody to ask who is willing to actually show me.

so, there is your answer.

You have plenty of people to ask right here for one. Most of us will help. People here won't consider you a waste of tim But you also have to put in a little effort on your own. I'm not saying you specifically haven't. That was more of a general you. I'm more than happy to help someone, but I'm not usually willing to write the code for them.

Most of us here learned on our own. It's not at all difficult to get information. Yes there is plenty on the internet. There are also books. I usually prefer picking up an intro book or two on any subject to start and I try to find books that will also prove to be a resource later.

I read one book, then another, and still another if need be until I understand the basics. Along the way I'm writing code. I may start simply by typing in the examples from the book I read and then playing around to see what else I can get it to do. I've also found many books have errors in their code, though unlike some I find it helpful since it gives me an opportunity to figure out why the code didn't work.

If you're looking online and find information that's hard to understand look again. There are basic tutorials out there which are written for beginners. Or as I mentioned above find some books that are written as an introduction.

Every time I'm learning a new subject I spend a few hours in a bookstore. I pick 4 or 5 books off the shelf that I think will be appropriate for me and then sit in a comfy chair and begin reading some of each. In an hour or so I've given myself a pretty decent intro and found the one or two books I want to purchase and read from cover to cover.

If you can't afford the books, do the same thing at your local library.

I have learnt by DIY and am probably one of the people your on about - I would think most DIY'ers aren't doing it as a profession, but doing it to aid their own business and will want to make everything about their own site as perfect as possible. I know I do.

That includes the code, document flow, hosting (managing a site online) SEO and everything else about the site as it will directly influence my core business (I tend to obsess on stuff though until I know what I’m doing ) but I still have a long way to go before I could even consider myself to be competent enough to claim I know what I am doing as there are so many disciplines to learn to be able to manage a site correctly.

I am still learning and am far from having a complete site (if their is such a thing) but I learn a little bit more everyday and I would hope that if I did one day pass my site to a professional they wouldn't have too much trouble working with my code.

Steve is dead right, if people put the effort in to learn themselves (which is a must as far as I'm concerned) people on this site are only too willing to help with specific problems.

Thats my 2 cents anyway

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

So my question is, why are there so many bad developers out there? Is it just poor self-education, laziness, lack of interest, poor discipline, stupidity?

Mostly laziness, and a bit of stupidity thrown in for good measure. Not abject, incurable stupidity, but the kind that comes from lack of interest and laziness. I have a developer I work with, who doesn't give a rat's behind about reusability, of work. Create an object, use it, dispose it, on demand. In a loop. This person will never store things in memory and reuse them. There's never any startup code for the services we get, it's all done in the request method. I'm pushing very hard to make sure this person doesn't continue to work here, because the performance is always terrible, and the code is very often unusable.

There's a false ethic being formed, where complexity is bad and the strongest laziness is good. This is apparently easier to QA and read.

Originally Posted by bakerc

I have learnt by DIY and am probably one of the people your on about - I would think most DIY'ers aren't doing it as a profession, but doing it to aid their own business and will want to make everything about their own site as perfect as possible. I know I do.

And that's why you probably aren't one of the people being complained about. You don't have my 19 years of SQL experience, but it sounds like you know what "perfect" is, and what compromises are involved in reaching perfection. That's better than most people with "programmer" in their title.

I'm another self-taught wanna-be programmer, basically only since last November. I happen to care a lot about standards, reusability, accessibility, quality, etc. I do everything I can to learn about patterns, testing, security and more because I want to learn how to do things the right way. I haven't put out a whole lot of code for the public yet, but that will change soon.

I know I have a long way to go when it comes to coding, but I think that the problem of 'bad' developers is due in part to poor education. It took me a long time to figure out what questions to even ask, much less to find the answers to them. Many won't bother searching for an answer if they can figure out a hack on their own. Even if they do bother, there is a lot of bad advice out there as well. I think that the best thing that people can do is direct others to good resources, practices, and information.

Another aspect I think that might be overlooked is some of the tools that are being used. A lot of people use Dreamweaver because it 'magically' make roll-over menus, etc and they never bother learning how to do it themselves. Dreamweaver spits out some pretty bad code at (most) times. Frontpage is another example and I'm sure there are others as well.

Both of those areas, information and tools, are something that I'm going to be trying to address with my website as it moves forward (though I'm going to be redesigning it soon). I'd really like to become a good resource for web developers. I think if we have more sites like quirksmode, Boxes and Arrows, Smashing Magazine, 37Signals, A List Apart, etc. we will start to see more 'good' developers than bad developers.

I would have never guessed you have only been coding etc since last November, well done .

Funny you should mention Frontpage and DW, I used to use Frontpage (which was what I used when I joined WMT), even when I knew it was terrible on the backend I still had to use it because I didn't have any alternatives. I have since learnt to use DW which is much better but I still have to go into code view and alter stuff myself every now and then. I have learnt HTML and CSS (am still learning) so I dont really have to use DW anymore, I just find it very convenient and tons better than FP.

I read your RSS tutorial buy the way, very good thank you.
You should get that stickied somewhere as its a question that comes up more and more in the coding section. I am planning to put a feed on my site - when I get the time (web stuff isn't my main business).