I started tinkering with computer programming twenty years ago. It started pretty simple with learning HTML, then I moved on to learn C, then C++, and Java. Along the way, I picked up numerous other languages. For the last 17 years, writing software has been my profession. I consider myself an expert programmer, particularly in Java. But what does expert mean? I see resumes of people who have 3 or 4 years of experience and claim to be an expert in Java. Is that possible? Unfortunately, I think the IT world has cheapened the idea of being an expert to a point where it is meaningless. In the competitive market for software developers, individuals market themselves as an expert so they can acquire the most lucrative job opportunities. Does this really hurt anyone? Yes, it really does. Companies have self-proclaimed experts write their software. Then, when that worker’s contract is done, or another more exciting project comes up, that expert jumps ship. Now, the company is left to maintain that code. And this is usually the point where the business finds out that the ‘expert’ they hired wasn’t an expert at all. Expertise in computer programming means an ability to analyze the problem and come up with a solution that is maintainable and stable. But all too often, we find ‘experts’ writing code that nobody wants to maintain because it is convoluted, poorly documented, fails to comply with style and naming conventions, and buggy. We find database schemas that are bloated and make no sense. We see poor project hierarchy and little object decomposition. In short, we see garbage code. When you hire a programmer, don’t let them fool you — if they’ve only been writing code for a few years, they’re not an expert.
