On: Skills Poor Programmers Lack

[dymk]

We had no linters enforcing the "no magic constants" convention. If we did, I'd question the sanity of the engineer who added that linter.

The reason we got code like this was because of outsourced contractors cargo-culting something they saw elsewhere.

[humanrebar → dymk]

Well, maybe it's cargo culted from a place with such a linter. Or ornery peer reviewers who think their job is to be a human linter.

Correcting this sort of stuff is the job of a senior engineer, though. If it's extremely frustrating, I'd become independently wealthy or stay away from technical leadership positions.