Visual Studio Gets Achievements, Badges, Leaderboards 353
bonch writes "Microsoft has introduced a gamification plugin for Visual Studio that lets users win achievements and badges as they compete on leaderboards by writing code. The full list of achievements includes gems like 'Go To Hell' for using goto, and 'Potty Mouth' for using five different curses in one file. This is another example of Gamification, one of the latest trends to hit social media."
I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that the established programmer hierarchy would have me burned at the stake for even hinting at it, but I miss my old GOTO statement. Call it sloppy if you like, but a simple one line statement beats the shit out of the acrobatics I often have to do in Java to SIMPLY JUMP OUT OF THIS METHOD/LOOP TO A SINGLE SPECIFIC POINT IN THE PROGRAM.
break;} //shit, still doesn't go where I need it to
break;}
break;}
return;}
Now, cue the voices of 1,000 programmers looking for a non-existent "disagree" mod and screaming at the top of their girlie lungs on why GOTO is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL--as they parrot the professors who taught them that.
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Informative)
Judicious use of GOTO can dramatically simplify resource cleanup when exception handling is not supported. A function that must grab N resources in order (and free them in reverse order on success or failure) requires N nested blocks if you don't use GOTO (and no nesting if you do use GOTO). Often the only way to refactor such logic into sub-functions is by using continuation passing style, which is clear as mud.
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:4, Informative)
GOTO is certainly very useful in some circumstances. For example, a common pattern in the samba and SSSD sources is this (taking advantage of the talloc() hierarchical memory allocator):
tmp_ctx = talloc_new(parent_ctx).
*allocate memory on tmp_ctx *
do stuff or fail and goto done.
*allocate more memory on tmp_ctx *
do stuff or fail and goto done.
done:
talloc_free(tmp_ctx);
return result;
It's really handy to be able to just jump directly to the done: tag on any error and know that any memory you allocated is cleaned up appropriately.
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I agree that GOTO has its uses
Which is why the idea of automatically marking it as bad is stupid.
I haven't used goto in over 20 years, but, looking back, there's probably a few cases where I should have--cases where it would have made the code not only more efficient, but clearer.
(Also, in general, I think the RAII pattern is better than try/finally in most--but not all--cases, but that also requires language support.)
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Declare the variable where it is initialized (Score:3)
You could put the variable declaration outside the block assigned to null and then test if the value is null inside the finally
Which would violate the commonly quoted best practice to make each variable's scope no longer than needed. That is, don't initialize the variable to null when you declare it and overwrite the null value later; instead, declare the variable where it is initialized for real.
maybe it's time to think about decomposing the code into more manageable chunks
Until the overhead of packing an inner chunk's return values into a return value object, passing it back to the caller, and unpacking them in the caller becomes measurable in the profile.
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With try-blocks in Java 7, you can have a single one:
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. We used to do that in some of our source code bases. I always like how "important programmers" at "big companies" think 'goto' is verboten, but don't notice switch statements with fall-through cases. Because they're sooo much safer ;)
So I reversed that situation, and our incidence of resource handling errors went down markedly. As did our incidence of logic bugs from failing to break out of a switch.
In my opinion, obscuring the logic you're trying to express by using a workaround involving an arbitrarily "approved" keyword, obscures the logic.
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:4, Informative)
I would skip GOTO in favor of putting some of that logic into a function. Then I can simply return;
Sometimes that makes the code harder to read - you have to go look up what each function does, when it's actually a different but simple thing each time.
Visual Studio does make the looking up quite easy (and you can nav back to the original place from the function), but it still takes longer than just looking at everything in one page and then scrolling a bit to see the rest.
And lastly, you often have to come up with decent names for those functions ;). Sometimes coming up with good names takes longer than just writing the code...
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Informative)
You can use labels in java to break out of nested loops?
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Funny)
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Exactly that's maybe the only low-level feature where Java is better than C++.
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes algorithms have complex break conditions. You are arrogant to judge so quickly when all you have is a code snippet. I love these people who glance at some code and then say "you should refactor/redesign that" and offer no more than vague suggestions. In situations where I have the authority, I respond by assigning them the task they themselves suggested. Guess what I do when they fail at the very task they themselves so derogatorily suggested?
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Insightful)
Oblig. KXCD [xkcd.com]
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Maybe you should try writing a serious program without nested control structures then and show us how it should be done or are you going to suggest just making endless function calls so the code is unintelligable and the cost of push and popping on the stack becomes huge?
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I don't know about Java, not being a coder in it myself, but in C you can inline small function calls so they don't pushpop.
Whoever reads the code still has to pushpop (mentally) to understand what it does. Many programmers underestimate how much it adds to readability if you're able to just read a chunk of code line by line instead of jumping back and forth (often between multiple files).
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent is actually combining two different "this". Functions that don't need the full calling system can use an alternate fast calling system that's less expensive. Optimizing compilers can do this automatically. Separately, small functions (or functions called once, or non-small functions) can be inlined, usually automatically. It's usually documented in the compiler optimization options [gnu.org], for one.
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What's your problem? Java supports loop labels [wikipedia.org].
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I agree that goto has it place. Used in a right place it may result in much more readable and maintainable code. But, when used unwisely it will result in spaghetti code. You _can_ write all your code without goto but when your code screams for a goto, use it!
In you example, however, that deep nesting is just asking for trouble; goto or no goto. ;-)
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Funny)
...when your code screams for a goto, use it!
When your code anthropomorphizes, hit the delete key.
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If only someone would tell Cyberdyne that!
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Informative)
Was why GOTO is a bad idea every explained to you?
The honest fact is that, if you go low level enough, it (equivalent) is the only method of not proceeding to the next instruction, so you'd think that it would make sense to have it in all the higher languages.
However, the difference there is each label is (generally) only used once, and the state of all registers will be the same before and after. The problem with goto is that it requires the compiler to work out the meaning of all the variables at the point it jumps to, and to deal with loading those all into memory as part of the jump operation. At least with breaking out of a loop, you're going to be in the same scope as leaving it through the loop's condition becoming false. Returning from that context will move up (or, if you view things the other way, down) a scope, which is reasonable to deal with
GOTOs, on the other hand, used to allow jumps into noticeably different scopes, where variable contexts could lead to information not having the right meaning. And, that's where the raptors break through.
[citations needed]
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that might be true today, the the 'goto considered evil' has been around for a lot longer than CPUs with L2 cache.
The problem was that it used to be used for program flow like it was an while statement. That led to some pretty convoluted and impossible to understand code, and we won't even go into jumping to other function code.
Nowadays, the idea of using goto as a 'jump to function end' is reasonable, and a lot less expensive than throwing an exception to do the same thing... yes, I've seen them used for t
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:4, Informative)
Nowadays, the idea of using goto as a 'jump to function end' is reasonable, and a lot less expensive than throwing an exception to do the same thing... yes, I've seen them used for that.
It's extremely common in Linux kernel code (particularly device drivers), as it's used for error handling there, so that you can perform resource-freeing operations in reverse order very simply without a lot of indentation and braces.
ret = do_op1();
if (!ret)
goto fail1;
ret = do_op2();
if (!ret)
goto fail2;
ret = do_op3();
if (!ret)
goto fail3;
ret = do_op4();
if (!ret)
goto fail4;
return 0;
fail4:
undo_op4();
fail3:
undo_op3();
fail2:
undo_op2();
fail1:
undo_op1();
return -1;
Try rewriting that in C, without goto, in an unconvoluted way. And don't exceed 3 levels of indentation, and don't create any additional functions.
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Informative)
Citations won't be found, because the explanation is incorrect. There is no technical issue with compilers implementing 'goto' so long as the destination is in the same lexical scope (C has this limitation). Nor is it worth considering execution context at the level of the CPU, as any high-level loop or branch instruction must be translated into one of a limited number of conditional or non-conditional, relative or absolute jumps. Ultimately whether you use 'goto' or some other control construct you are attempting to express the same programmatic flow, and the compiled instruction stream will be sufficiently similar that it's not worth splitting hairs over.
The reason 'goto' is "considered harmful" is because structured programming [wikipedia.org] theorizes that any computable function can be expressed by combining simpler programs using sequence, selection and iteration; and this provides the opportunity for a constructive approach to program correctness. Dijkstra argues [utexas.edu] that we are cognitively limited and can benefit from code that is structured so that we can tell at any point where we are and where we have come from (a gross paraphrasing of what Dijkstra calls "coordinates"). But "[t]he unbridled use of the go to statement has as an immediate consequence that it becomes terribly hard to find a meaningful set of coordinates in which to describe the process progress". In other words careless use of 'goto' makes it hard to reason about your code.
Knuth contended that one could created structured programs with 'goto' statements [snu.ac.kr], and provided examples of how 'goto' make the program more elegant.
It is important to realise that the claimed advantages of structured programming are undone by the use of break, continue, or exception handling. There are limited forms of goto, and using them prevents proofs of correctness (under the assumptions of structured programming; other techniques may be available) and reasoning using Dijkstra's "coordinates".
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Informative)
The Linux kernel uses goto statements. About 95000 times..
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Insightful)
The Linux kernel uses goto statements. About 95000 times..
In the absence of exceptions, goto is a great tool for simplifying and clarifying error handling.
In a language with exceptions, goto is much less useful. I won't say it's never useful, but if I'm ever tempted to use goto for anything other than jumping to an error handling block, I know I need to take a step back and rethink the structure of the code, because there's almost certainly a better way.
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One important correction: it has nothing to do about exceptions, and everything to do about RAII. If C had scope guards, you could ditch goto for resource cleanup while still returning error codes to indicate values.
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Is it written entirely in ASM?
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I know that the established programmer hierarchy would have me burned at the stake for even hinting at it, but I miss my old GOTO statement. Call it sloppy if you like, but a simple one line statement beats the shit out of the acrobatics I often have to do in Java to SIMPLY JUMP OUT OF THIS METHOD/LOOP TO A SINGLE SPECIFIC POINT IN THE PROGRAM.
break;}
break;}
break;} //shit, still doesn't go where I need it to
return;}
Now, cue the voices of 1,000 programmers looking for a non-existent "disagree" mod and screaming at the top of their girlie lungs on why GOTO is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL--as they parrot the professors who taught them that.
While I'm not averse to using goto as necessary where available, I do try to avoid it as it is distinctly easy to make unclear code with it. With Java you do have the ability to label (and break/continue) loops, and of course you have exceptions and finally clauses to make various cleanup patterns simple. You also have private methods that are really cheap. All that sort of horrible mess that would lead to the precise thing that you're complaining about should be refactored so that it conveys its exact inte
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The way it's described in the kernel coding style is probably one of the very few "correct" uses of it. In fact, I know we have code here that does exactly that, goto cleanup; then it has a return right after taking care of whatever buffers and such. Initially I was somewhat offended looking at it but after a while I've started to agree with it. In fact, I'd say that use pretty much justifies its continued existence.
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:4, Informative)
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Interesting comment, but I'm with Dijkstra on this one:
http://www.ifi.uzh.ch/req/courses/kvse/uebungen/Dijkstra_Goto.pdf [ifi.uzh.ch]
RS
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Informative)
One of my profs once laughed at me when I said his code had a goto and we shouldn't do it that way (because that's what we'd been taught in class).
Then he sat me down and walked through the code, and explained what the code was doing, and the failure modes that made it necessary to use a goto. This was OS-level code, and performing some very fiddly things, and several layers deep in looping structures. You'd have had to put in twice as much code to check the error conditions necessary to peel out of that, and since it was essentially working on bare metal, there was simply no room to add much more overhead.
He did manage to convince me that a goto isn't something you do because it's convenient, but that in some code, in some languages there simply isn't a better alternative to bail out of some code in the event of a failure.
I have worked in a couple of languages (one being C, the other proprietary) in which a goto was the cleanest/only way to get out of the code, and get to a place where you could do all of your cleanup and get out cleanly.
It has its place, but it should definitely be used sparingly. Blindly saying never use a goto doesn't always give you the best solution.
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Blindly saying never use a goto doesn't always give you the best solution.
Blindly saying never do X hardly ever gives you the best solution.
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Then he sat me down and walked through the code, and explained what the code was doing, and the failure modes that made it necessary to use a goto.
Exactly. To every rule there is an exception, and if you would not ever want to use a GOTO, don't you think programming languages would have removed it by now?
For every hallowed "law" of programming, there is always a case where it doesn't hold true. I passed my assembler 101 with a self-modifying program, even though the prof told us pretty much every other lecture that self-modifying programs are a big no-no (and yes, thus the challenge was born in my mind). Because I could explain why in this particular
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Does goto: lead to spaghetti code? That's up to the programmer - not the language feature. You want to see REAL spaghetti code? Look at some of the horrors coming out of Java.
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Insightful)
People misunderstand the point of the whole "goto is evil" thing. It's not that jumping around in code is evil. No program of any real value can run sequentially from start to finish. You have to jump around to do anything useful. Conditional processing, iteration, function calls, and exception handling all involve jumps of one kind or another. Whether the language calls it "goto" or gives it a different name doesn't change the fact that it's a jump.
However, there are a set of logical, structured jump patterns that have been well defined over the decades which produce readable, understandable, debuggable, extendable, logical code. These patterns include the constructs I described previously. Some languages have specific keywords for these constructs, while others rely on the keyword "goto" for their implementation. There's nothing wrong with using "goto" to implement one of these logical patterns, if that's how the pattern is implemented in that particular language.
However, it is possible in languages that have a "goto", to execute a jump that is outside of these known patterns. These illogical, seemingly random jumps result in code that is confusingly obfuscated, and consequently more error-prone, as well as harder to extend.
So, when people say "goto is evil", they're really saying "unstructured jumps are evil". Using such a construct might accomplish what you're trying to accomplish, but it will generally do so at the expense of readability, maintainability, and extendability of the code.
And yes, any language, whether it has a "goto" or not, can be abused by a properly (un)skilled programmer to create a chaotic mess of spaghetti code.
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I'm not a purist. I don't believe there is anything in a programming language that works fine and yet should never, ever be used. If it is appropriate, use it.
Obviously I only see the fragment of code you put there (and in all probability you made it up on the spot rather than taking it from an existing codebase) but when I see that level of nesting and then you're still not happy with where the code ends up my first instinct isn't "gosh, a goto would work great here." It's "is this program really stru
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There are a handful of times where goto is simply the most elegant solution, and a handful of times where performance really matters, so encapsulating logic into a function to avoid a goto will be too costly. I've used it once since my high school BASIC days; interestingly it was only a few months ago.
We had a costly operation working against arbitrary precision numbers, with some nondeterministic aspects. Part of the data produced is very publicly visible, and because of the nondeterministic aspects of t
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shit, still doesn't go where I need it to
Allow me to introduce you to the modern wonders of indoor plumbing.
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Try the 'continue' statement
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/branch.html
'continue' statement allies only to one loop level. He wants to jump out from several nested loops.
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Incidentally, this is how "break" is implemented in Scala. There is no break keyword in the language, but it is implemented at the library level by throwing/catching an exception.
Here's the source code:
https://lampsvn.epfl.ch/trac/scala/browser/scala/tags/R_2_9_1_final/src//library/scala/util/control/Breaks.scala#L1 [lampsvn.epfl.ch]
Re:I miss GOTO...there I said it (Score:5, Informative)
Oddly enough, GOTO does have a legitimate use in C#. Switch statements in C# don't fall through. If you want a switch statement to fall through, you have to use a goto ; to force the fall through.
Unless it's an empty switch statement. Those are allowed to fall-through.
"Gamification" doesn't make dull things a game... (Score:2, Interesting)
It just makes them dull things with out of place social media gimmicks.
As a gamer, I am not pleased with this trend.
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I know right? It is poor to think that only 5 'curse' words per file gets you Potty Mouth status. They obviously think that is a challenge.
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Load up the linux kernel source code. you will get the "riddled with filth" achievement.
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I think 5 curses in a file indicates bad design. If you need more than one library for handling your TUI you're clearing Doing It Wrong.
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"achievements" ruin everything - games included.
Good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
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If writing code is the boring part of your career, why did you train yourself and get into that line of work? Most people I know who write code, because they want to write code, they feel best when given the opportunity between meetings to write code. The best developers I know tend to go home after their job, and sit down to their hobby projects where they... write code.
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This wont result in bad code.
I'm guessing you didn't look at the list of achievements, particularly the "Don't Try This at Home" section. It has achievements for writing a 300 character-long line of code, or for having a method with 10 overloads.
Do While (Score:4, Funny)
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That's funny. The codebase I inherited is *full* of do{}while(0); with a bunch of breaks inside of the do to jump out at any point something goes haywire. Come work for my team, your day will never suck (at least my that metric).
-nB
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To be fair, the code is reliable, stable, and the Do{}while(0);'s are not so long as to be trouble tracing. This is all C code, not C++, and has to be cross compatible with embedded firmware, Windows, and Linux. Also, since that's close to the largest sin in the codebase, I'll not be leaving anytime soon.
the general layout is of the general style:
enum tonsOfStatusCodes{PASS=0,FAIL,CUSTOM,foo, bar,baz}; ...
tonsOfStatusCodes status = FAIL;
do{
status=customMalloc(ptr);
if(status){break;}
status=populateData(ptr);
if(status){break;}
status=transmogrifyData(ptr);
}while(0);
so at the end of this you either passed everything or you know where you borked.
Are there better ways? yes.
Does this work in a very compatible way? yes.
Is it bro
Resume builder? (Score:5, Funny)
So, is this going to be a good thing to put on your resume?
* Stay focused and attentive to work.
* Hard worker
* Level 32 Visual Studio Achievements
* Stays on task
Uhhhh...
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Possible badges for good code (Score:5, Interesting)
I for one would find these badges nice:
On the other hand, IDEs like Netbeans and Eclipse are getting better and better at nagging users about such issues (and auto-generating code to fix many of them). Do we really need the badges?
Re:Possible badges for good code (Score:4, Funny)
Do we really need the badges?
We don't need no stinkin' badges! [wikipedia.org]. Or badgers.
Re:Possible badges for good code (Score:4, Interesting)
War Games: "The only way to win...." (Score:2)
This makes me so very glad I didn't go into this field for a profession.
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Achiements will be in every job in a decade.
I wonder if I can get an achievement (Score:2)
for writing my first 1000 lines of code!
FUN! With programming and Achievements!?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Gotta get 'em all (Score:5, Insightful)
There are many players who simply have to collect every single achievement. Considering what these achievements are like (use 20 single-letter variables, write a 300-character line etc.) I hope their behavior won't carry over to programming...
Badges?!?! (Score:2)
Somebody had to say it.
Only 5 curses in one file? (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly my code commenting technique is slightly different from the norm.
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Weird- I am from NJ and pretty foul-mouthed, but I have never once in 15 years felt the urge to put profanity in my comments.
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I live in Scotland.
No further qualification necessary.
man, not vendor (Score:5, Insightful)
Achievements should be defined by management, not the software vendor.
Next on the list: (Score:3)
Taking inspiration from Dungeons of Dredmor (with NH homage, I believe):
Suddenly the Dungeon Collapses
Achieved when you manage to crash the program.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I want my dev environment to have leaderboards and be "gamified"?
I'm glad it's only a plugin, but to me this is part of the annoying trend that everything we do needs to be tied into social media ... I mean, "they can also brag about their achievements on Facebook and Twitter". Why on earth does everything we do nowadays need to be tied into Facebook and Twitter?
I'm waiting for the first wave of toilets with integration to those sites ... then we will truly widespread "Twitter Shitters" and other bits of stupidity.
Then again, maybe I'm just old and uncool, and all of the cool kids are doing this ... but to me this just sounds like something which is utterly pointless.
I've been trying to recover from decades of hating (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, I have been trying to get over the MS hate that I've had since Windows 3. They're just another big company, trying to do what they can and at least they try to compete in new markets even though they routinely get shelled by the competition when they stray off the desktop.
But WTF?!?. Badges in Visual Studio? For real? They have no idea what they are doing. Are they chasing 15 year old developers to be? This is a company with 10s of billions in cash that can subsidize products like Xbox for years and years. This is fucking Bob in the IDE.
Re:I've been trying to recover from decades of hat (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm 22 and I think this sounds pretty cool. I'm already addicted to achievements in videogames, why not be addicted to achievements in programming, too?
It's like the drug dealers who gave out free samples of crack with the heroin they sold.
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You are being played.
Re:I've been trying to recover from decades of hat (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm many decades past 15 and this looks awesome.
If you stopped and looked around for moment instead of assume you know what's going on you would realize how powerful achievements are. There are many, many good outcomes to this. The biggest will be more knowledgeable and experience developers.
You can't have been around that long if you think this is MS Bob.
That said, MSBob had a great start, but someone future wife was put in charge and basically managed it to shit.
Hey, everyone, look! (Score:2)
This joke ridiculing a trend was turned into real thing ridiculing a trend, so it is evidence of a trend!
Maybe the real reason.... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the real reason for the badges and leaderboards is so inept managers who know more about marketing than programming have some way to evaluate what the programmers are doing.
Good (Score:3)
I can't wait for achievement to be everywhere. I think they me the best way to get a populous to achieve an over all, non critical goal.
How about the other way around? (Score:3)
When will Visual Studio achieve the "supports the C++11 standard" badge?
Gamification instead of taxes (Score:3)
What if we had government gamification instead of taxes? Instead of taxing cigarettes, let's have an achievement for not smoking. Or achievements for eating healthy foods. Achievements would earn you points toward social security. Companies could offer achievements toward pensions and retirement. Maybe instead of a military, we could have achievements for killing enemy soldiers. Oooh, I see the makings of a dystopian novel coming on!
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good only for learing/discovering IDE features (Score:3)
But this is a good idea for making sure you're familiar with all the features the IDE offers. Done right, with interactive walkthroughs and whatnot, achievements could serve as an excellent supplement to documentation.
Achievemnt Unlocked! Use a C99 Compliant Compiler (Score:4, Insightful)
seriously — they're totally missing the poin (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of gamification is to give little awards for postitive behavior — or at least active engagement with the site/product/tool/whatever. A few of these fit that (the badge for working on a Saturday or Friday night), but most of them are labels of shame for doing things like writing a single line of code that is several screens too wide.
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Things like that are punished by having to deal with them later, and if you're not having to deal with them later then nothing is likely to get you to do it right.
Ultimately, these things are much better enforced in person. Yes, if you're a team of one that's not going to happen, but then again if you're a team of one, you had better know what you're doing and do it right without having people mocking you for poor style.
Re:seriously — they're totally missing the p (Score:5, Insightful)
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I guess I'm playing with cheat codes. All I have to do is check out and compile one of our solutions and I've automatically got all the "Power Coder" achievements. Until today, I'd never considered any of those attributes to be things anyone would want to consider as goals - not that they are inherently bad. That's nothing special either. I think there are hoardes of programmers out there working on software for which this is true.
Where's the points for things like consistant formatting and naming conventio
Re:This just confirms it (Score:4, Funny)
The achievement for using goto is "Go To Hell". How is that encouraging, I have no idea :) . In fact, most of those achievements are just a funny take on amateur programmers. Just take a look at the list:
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The opposite could be the case, someone might be using goto not knowing it's considered bad and learn that it is from this achievement.
You'd have to be living under a rock to *not* know that GOTOs are considered bad.
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Funny)
*even grammar*
Obvious isn't it? (Score:5, Funny)
Huge hideous bugs!
Re:What real men use.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Smart men use the tool that makes the job the easiest.