Welcome to my little project.
Many self taught programmers are skilled, effective problem solvers. Give them a problem and they'll give you a solution that works, and works well. Most self taught programmers learn their skills by reading tutorials and poorly written "examples" in whatever manual they were reading to learn their language of choice. This leads to poor coding habits, inelegant structure, and a conspicuous lack of high level concepts like design patterns, properly designed OO structure, and effective use of existing algorithms.
All programmers, no matter their skill level, write crappy code. Perfect "show piece" code is only possible when you have the time, budget, and need to anal-retentively pour over class, method, and line of code. In the modern world, where deadlines are measured in units like "tomorrow," it just simply isn't possible. That doesn't mean, however, that you can't write nice, clean, efficient, self-documenting code that all but the most snobby developers would enjoy maintaining later.
This blog is going to be about making practical use of the buzzword laden concepts you hear bandied about on Slashdot. We'll sift through the crap to find the concepts worth adopting and reusing, and find practical ways to integrate them into your existing workflow. So sit back and relax. I hope you find it useful.
