Do you know a “meh” programmer? As an example:

Alice: This variable name isn’t very good…
Bob: Meh, it’s just a variable name, it’s good enough.

Where does this lack of caring come from? If you replace variable name with something else, it sounds ridiculous:

Alice: This algorithm isn’t very good…
Bob: Meh, it’s just an algorithm, it’s good enough.

To me, this kind of behavior is antithetical to the ideas of Software Craftsmanship. An incorrect algorithm makes the program wrong, and most programmers detest that idea. An incorrect variable name only affects how well-crafted the program is, but we are usually all-too-willing to let that slide. There shouldn’t be such a huge gulf between these two ideas.

I recently caught myself saying the following during a code review:

I would have named this variable descriptive_name instead of foo. Don’t worry though, it doesn’t really matter since the code works.

Fortunately, I know exactly why I said this – I was too afraid to be truly confrontational. Not everyone buys-in to Software Craftsmanship in to the extent that I strive to. Even if they did, craftsmanship is a softer science, providing many ways to be right.

I don’t know which I think is worse, not caring about the craftsmanship of the code you write, or being too scared to evangelize good practices to others. I bet master woodworkers don’t have to deal with these kinds of problems.