Off topic — Programming takes no great intellectual effort

A colleague amused me today. For some reason he has to figure out why our tests aren’t working. As luck would have it, he didn’t write the tests himself. Our branch in Southeast Asia did.

A loop that starts at one

for (int i = 0; i < CONTRACT_NAMES.length; i++) {

 if (i != 0) {

 ...

 }

}

Now I know why JUnit has a fail method

catch (SomeException e) {

 fail(e.getMessage());

} catch (SomeOtherException e) {

 fail(e.getMessage());

}

As I dig into pieces of code produced in Southeast Asia, three explanations occur to me, or perhaps some combination of them.

• Programming takes no great intellectual effort
• A different mindset: finish the task without thinking too much about it
• Pay based on the number of lines produced

Related links

• The height of inefficiency
• The world’s factory might swallow your job too