Learning to code

OK,

Interesting conversation with another "developer" - in the loosest sense of the word, regarding a mutual friend who is just starting to learn C#

I mentioned that the world would be a nicer place to be if all developers were given a grounding in things such as:

- Source Control
- Design Patterns
- Unit Testing

Before being let loose on the world of code.

The question is, should your first "hello world" application be unit tested? Developed using TDD? Adhere to the MVC pattern? Be in source control and properly labelled?

I think the answer is a pretty resounding "yes, of course". The reams and reams of substandard C# I see every week (mainly from code posted on the interweb) demonstrates the fact that people don't "pick up those things later on". They simply don't. How many code/function snippets have you seen on various blogs (mine included) which have associated unit tests? Hardly any.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as guilty of this as the next man - but maybe...just maybe...if I'd started out writing code in the correct manner, maybe I would find it easier to do so now...

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