What if...Customers Saw the Code

Sometimes I wish this were true. Ever read Daily WTF? I've seen a lot of code like this and it makes me grumpy. Neatness counts IMO and I wish everyone with an IDE (whether they call themselves a developer or not) felt the same way. I've seen customers given tours of office buildings, operation centers, and factory floors...but I have yet to see customers shown code. I think many of them would cringe at the less cryptic languages which are easier to understand. I could probably arrange a 20/20 interview to talk about the horrible truth behind how billing statements are created, how data is managed (or mismanaged), etc. What do you think? Is it REALLY that bad out there? :-)

posted on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 7:33 PM

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# re: What if...Customers Saw the Code 3/29/2006 10:23 AM Eric W. Bachtal

I agree with you that neatness counts. Clear, concise, and well organized code reduces bugs, improves maintainability, and makes code adoption easier for others.

Clients don't often get (or want) a tour, but I still always code like they're watching and always with the expectation that I will have to explain the code and myself to someone sometime down the road.

# re: What if...Customers Saw the Code 8/2/2006 4:47 AM השמה היי-טק

from my experience, you defiantly don't want the customer to see the code

# re: What if...Customers Saw the Code 9/20/2006 3:07 AM צימרים

thanks