Hacker News Reader

> Achieving desired result is professional.

No. It is geeking out, part of the job...

> achieving desired result without doing the hard parts is not only professional, but smart and actually kind of awesome.

That is a menace. I think I am working on code you wrote

It is the opposite of professional. It is amateur, irresponsible dilettantism

View on HN

"Professional" is doing what they're paying you for, end of story.

Most employers have less than zero interest in paying coders to document in my experience. If they want documentation to exist, they hire a technical writer.

Sadly, I've never met an employed tech writer (and no, journalists don't count).

You're not being paid to document, you're being paid for writing maintainable code (in decent places at least) and it's your job as a professional to decide how much documentation that includes. In my opinion the idea that good code is "self-documenting" is a myth.

> ...to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting

Reply on news.ycombinator.com