[Post] qualified senior programmers

As a Senior Programmer, as a system analyst, that is, the designer of a program project, in addition to all the above qualities, the following qualities are also required:

First, demand analysis capability
Programmers can complete qualified code by understanding the requirements. However, for the organization and managers of R & D projects, they must not only understand the customer requirements, but also develop their own requirements more often, why?
In general, the R & D task may be a requirement from the customer, or from the marketing and marketing departments. At this time, the R & D department does not see a complete requirement. Generally, this requirement is only functional or more formal, and may obtain a complete user view. However, this is not enough because the customer has many non-technical factors, they may have difficulty proposing complete and clear, or professional performance requirements, but for project organizers and planners, he must be aware of the existence of these needs and make appropriate suggestions when completing the requirement analysis report. At the same time, they must be complete and clear in the Design Manual, so that programmers do not lose these coding rules.
The program designer must correctly understand the environment where the user needs are located and analyze the requirements accordingly. For example, the same software is released by ASP leasing and by license, performance requirements may be different. The former emphasizes better support and stability, while the latter may emphasize the universality of various platforms and the simplicity of installation and use.

Second, project design methods and process processing capabilities
Programmers must be able to master at least two or three project design methods (such as top-to-bottom design methods, such as quick prototyping ), you can select an appropriate design method based on your project requirements and resources. Improper selection of design methods will delay the R & D cycle, waste of R & D resources, and even affect the R & D effect.
A programmer also needs to design and process flowcharts. He needs to create a data flow chart to establish a data dictionary. He needs to process a logical flow chart to form an overall system processing flow. A system with problematic processes, even if the code is more beautiful and each module is more refined, will not become a good system. Of course, to analyze the process and select a proper project design method, you must have sufficient grasp of the requirement analysis capability.

Third, reuse design and modular decomposition capabilities
This seems to be an old-fashioned re-discussion. Isn't the problem already explained in the basic quality?
As a programmer engaged in module tasks, he needs to consider the reusability of specific functional modules he faces. As a system analyst, he has to deal with a lot of complicated problems, the overall system should be divided into many reusable functional modules and functions according to a modular analysis capability, and an independent design requirement should be formed for each module. For example, in automobile production, each automobile was first installed independently, and each component was customized, but later it was different, an automobile factory began to produce automobiles through pipelines, and independent components began to be reusable. In the future, standardization became a general trend, with different models, brands and even Auto Parts of different manufacturers can also be easily updated and upgraded. At this time, the efficiency of auto production is maximized. The same is true for Software Engineering. In a mature software industry, different components can be changed at will in some related projects and systems. For example, many desktop software of Microsoft, many operation modules (such as opening files and saving files) use the same set of function modules. These interfaces are provided to desktop application developers through some class libraries for convenient mounting, this is an obvious evidence of the reusable module design.
A large and complex application system is divided into several relatively independent and highly reusable modules that can be combined with data contact by just a few parameters, it is the most important task for senior programmers and system analysts. A proper project design method and a clear flowchart are important to achieve this goal.

Fourth, overall project evaluation capability
As a system designer, you must be able to get a clear understanding of the entire project, such as whether the company's resource configuration is reasonable and in place, for example, whether the project schedule can maximize the efficiency will not be completed on schedule. Evaluate the overall workload of the project and the workload of each module, evaluate the resources required by the project, and evaluate the difficulties that the project may encounter. It requires a lot of experience, in other words, this is a kind of realm that can be achieved through continuous summarization. Some leaders in Software System Design in the West are very old, such as 4, 50, or even older. They are far less active in coding than young people, but in terms of project evaluation, their decades of experience are the most important and valuable wealth. The lack of such a generation of programmers in China is not the lack of programmers of that age, but the programmers of that age are basically made by research units, not from professional product software development, they have no experience in product-based R & D. This is also impossible.
Fifth, team organization and management capabilities
To complete a project, the team must work together. As a project designer or R & D supervisor, the team should be able to maximize the overall strength of the team. Due to its professional nature, Technical Management, it is not the same as general personnel management, because some technical indicators and factors are designed here.
The first is the quantification of work. Without quantification, it is difficult to achieve a suitable performance appraisal. Program quantification is not a simple calculation of the number of lines of code, therefore, technical management personnel must be able to assess the complexity and workload of a module.
The second is the adjustment of the team collaboration model. Generally, the program development collaboration is divided into groups. The group has the primary programmer and the democratic mode, based on the gap in the ability level between programmers and the needs of project R & D, select an appropriate team-up method and closely combine duties and permissions with the work tasks of members, in this way, the team formation efficiency can be maximized.
A person with a high level of Code may not be able to become a qualified project R & D Director. Lack of ability in this area is often overlooked.

In summary, we can see that, as the person in charge of R & D, a project designer, the qualities and capabilities required are not the ability to write program code. Of course, in general, when a programmer reaches this quality through continuous summarization, his coding capability is quite simple, but pay attention to the causal relationship, A high-level project designer is already a very good person in code writing, but not a programmer with very good code can be competent in project design, this is not a question of IQ and textbooks. It is also because a programmer is not aware of what to think about when accumulating experience and gradually improving, there is no conscious understanding of the project organization and reuse design, no regular document habits and summary habits, and without changing these, our qualified project designers are still very lacking.

In addition, to prevent bored people from being honest with me, this article aims at commercial software projects and projects, as well as programming experts from scientific research institutions, such as algorithm experts, compared with image processing experts, they work on research topics rather than directly completing commercial software (of course, they eventually become commercial products, such as Microsoft Research Institute's research topics ), therefore, the quality they emphasize may be something else. These people (experts) cannot be called programmers, nor can they be measured by the standards of programmers.