Chapter 2 - How to Avoid Becoming a “Code Grinder”

Abstract

A code grinder as defined by the hacker community reference is a developer who lacks creativity and is bound by rules and primitive techniques. Those primitive techniques make it difficult to introduce creativity into the developer's work effort if he or she is bound by such rules. Developers who become code grinders rarely become that way because of lack of ambition; code grinders are born from an environment that struggles with freedom at a developer level. If you become stuck in the code-grinder environment, the focus is on functionality, not security. Your code becomes predictable and quickly outdated and becomes an easy target for an attack by hackers. However, one leaves after a period of several months to work elsewhere, in order to now work at someplace where you do have the freedom to develop as you choose. Any creative coder in a position like this knows exactly how many “holes” are in the code being written at the former place of employment. This situation is one way in which allowing a code-grinder environment to develop is a bad way to go for a company. It's a double-edged sword really; some companies simply feel that to maintain standards in their applications, there can be no flexibility in the development efforts. Those companies tend to pigeonhole developers, a situation that encourages the more-inspired developers to leave when they realize they have other options.