Judging competency - does one swallow make a summer?

Question

Whilst working on some generally horrible Javascript code this morning, I came across the following (in multiple places):

// make moveAmount negative
moveAmount = moveAmount - (moveAmount * 2);

I sit directly across from the guy that wrote this; he's been a developer here for seven years. I, on the other hand have just started, am pretty junior and don't claim to know jack.

Nevertheless it has got me wondering about the guy's contortions of simple logic after so many years developing software.

My question is what view others here might take of the overall competancy of a developer that wrote this (3 weeks ago), or does it even reflect at all?

Would anyone point out the convolution?

I, myself, work in constant dread that such judgements be made of me.

Answer 1

Simple solution: Show him the line of code and ask why he did it. It's an opportunity for both of you to learn something. Maybe there was a bug in a browser or some other issue (rounding comes to mind) so the code might break without this. Or he made a mistake. Either way, asking will clear this up.

And while you're right that other people will judge you from the code they see from you, that is not the only thing they take into consideration (and if it is, then you're working at the wrong place -- leave while you're still sane). They will also see when you're polite, curious, helpful.

These things count more than the code you write: Code can be fixed much more easily than angry co-workers.