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We've employed some apprentices at work, I've been prepping materials for them. One essential skill is the correct use of sites such as this.
I'm trying to write guidelines about using* code from dev sites. The slide I've produced looks like:
You must understand any code you “lift” from the interwebz.
It has to be maintainable - cobbling stuff together is not acceptable.
It would be pretty unusual for the code to be exactly what you want, it will probably need some tailoring, and to do this you will need to understand it.
Two questions:
I'm about to state that not all answers that appear helpful actually are - you need to make a judgement call on this. Does anyone have an example in Q&A- Any other hints - the must be more guidance
* I've a separate slide about using the site generally, including about being a good citizen (such as following site guidance).
[Edit]
I've found my bad answer - I won't list it here as it was an honest attempt to help the OP. Wrong, but honest.
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
modified 11-Sep-14 11:58am.
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Keith Barrow wrote: I'm about to state that not all answers that appear helpful actually are - you need to make a judgement call on this. Does anyone have an example in Q&A
Almost anything from He Who Must Not Be Named... 
Keith Barrow wrote: Any other hints - the must be more guidance
Include links and references to where you got the material from.
Don't use "clever code" - if you can't understand it fairly quickly then it's just going to waste more time when it needs alteration.
Comment it! Tell us what you are doing, not what the code is doing.
Follow good practices: naming conventions, private fields - public properties, parameterised queries, ...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: Almost anything from He Who Must Not Be Named.
I need wrong, not regurgitated  - I've found a relatively decent recent example of incorrect guidance.
OriginalGriff wrote: Include links and references to where you got the material from.
This one is quite useful actually, at my great age I don't tend to lift from the Internet any more, but when I do I'm working on an unusual case- I do leave a link under these circs. The clever code bit I've added too.
[Edit]
Forgot my original purpose - to say thanks!
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
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You're welcome!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I question a team/team member that has to be told this. Not one person on our software team needs this discussion.
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He's talking about apprentices, not experienced professionals. And I remember what my code was like back in those days... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Are any of them apprentices?
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
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Are these formal apprentices, or just new hires with no experience?
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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Actual apprentices on a course and everything.
We've had trouble hiring round here - most of the good devs end up leaving this economic backwater. So the proposed solution has been to try training our own.
It's quite depressing in a way, in my day many of them would have got grants and mickied off to university, a world of drinking fornication experience is being denied them. They've been a breath of fresh air TBH, though I've had to live through the pain of explaining who Vic and Bob are - they are too young to remember.
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
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Apprentices, what are those again?
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People who don't know how to use Developer websites 
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
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They're the kids with slightly less money and slightly more brains than the average undergraduate.
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I would suggest that anyone that incorporates code from a dev web-site, like CP, or StackOverFlow, into your company's code also be required to document (in comments) the source, and how they modified it. And, they should be prepared to explain what it does in a code review.
cheers, Bill
“I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: They amount to 14.” Abd-Ar Rahman III, Caliph of Cordoba, circa 950CE.
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before using code from t'webz:
check the comments from other users - it may be crap even though it looks like it does exactly what you wanted it to.
don't stop looking when you find one example (except in trivial cases) as there may be a better way of doing it.
make sure it is still current - old hints for old versions of software may no longer be valid in your environment.
if you use it - add a comment in your code pointing out where it came from originally. If something goes wrong later its good to be able to got back and check if the author has fixed the issue already.
If you use it, thank the author.
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Reminds me of this[^]
Alberto Brandolini: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
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Hah! CLassic. Good film that, one of his best IMO.
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If you click all the way through the report of the report of the report to the actual report it says that high salt intake was linked to high blood pressure in men, but not in women. Also those with high blood pressure consumed more salt than those without.
In both sexes a higher BMI led to a higher blood pressure, as did higher alcohol consumption. Higher fruit and vegetable consumption led to lower BP, physical activity had no effect.
And it is a study of French people only.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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chriselst wrote: And it is a study of French people only.
Who are known to be genetically deviant...
OK, so salt doesnt cause hypertension, but men with it like more salt.
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You're prefer it if science stopped responding to new evidence? But then it wouldn't be science.
However, believing any "science" you read in the Daily Fail is a big mistake. Don't forget, they believe that everything gives you cancer[^].
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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I prefer if what is called science is not taken as immutable fact. Thats the problem, which in itself is anti science.
Its the same with GW. Thats another very immature and ill understood area of science, yet it has become mainstream 'fact' just as low salt low fat diets have become. Thats the problem. Not that it changes, but that it was ever accepted without criticism in the first place!
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My wife has recently joined Slimming World, and I have followed a few of their recipes. I noticed that they were all quite high in salt. I rarely use the stuff cos I grew up not using it.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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I use sea salt, Carmargue salt normally, its grey, and has potassium as well as sodium salt in it, as well as all sorts of other stuff, dead plankton, fish crap, dead algae etc. Anyway, it is incredible stuff, it adds so much flavour to food without it ever tasting 'salty' if you know what I mean.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: I prefer if what is called science is not taken as immutable fact.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Munchies_Matt wrote: I prefer if what is called science is not taken as immutable fact.
That's more often a problem with certain tabloid newspapers publishing early research papers as "fact", whilst leaving out the most important details. Details don't matter; only the attention-grabbing headline:
Studies show that bacon causes cancer!!!!!
(We won't mention the fact that the studies were carried out on laboratory mice, who were force-fed ten times their own bodyweight in bacon every hour for a year.)
Then they kick up a fuss demanding to know why the government isn't doing anything to address the problem they've just invented.
The government decide that they have to respond to the will of the people, and introduce guidance or laws to "protect" the public from this menace. They're all too busy worrying about their public image to do anything daft like, for example, have a scientist read the original paper to see if it makes any sense.
If anyone asks any inconvenient questions, like "why hasn't anyone been able to reproduce the results from the original paper?", the tabloids portray them as lunatics, and tell us all to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Eventually, a new scientific paper is published which shows that the original paper was flawed, and the results should probably be ignored.
The tabloids print the conclusion of the new paper as "fact", and demand to know why the stupid government introduced guidance / laws based on flawed research. Their own involvement in the matter is conveniently ignored.
And finally, some idiot writing an op-ed column for the same tabloid declares that science itself is to blame, you wouldn't have had this problem in the good old days, bring back national service and hanging and old pre-decimalisation money, back off Brussels, if only Diana was alive, there that's 250 words invoice is in the post.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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