Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
101–110 of 126 posts
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#102well, it's your life. you said it yourself "I'm beginning to think that they mislead new employees because otherwise they would ask for a lot more money or walk away." so ask for a lot more money or walk away.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#103In my first job after college (circa 2007) I got roped into maintaining a ColdFusion website, enhancing a billing system written in C, and, later, working on a Java 1.4 app (which was starting to feel ancient, even then).
I learned something useful from each of those projects. And it's certainly not the case that this work caused my other skills to rot.
If you really, really don't like the work, then there's no shame in admitting that and moving on. But you have nothing to actually fear.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#104Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#105Can I ask what the legacy stack was? You can email me if you are afraid to narrow the scope of possible places. Similar thing happened to me once. I ended up toughing it out for a year, spent my evenings learning stuff I wanted to work on so it wasn't a lost year, and then leaving.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#106You've got a few problems:
1. You don't like your job that much (because reasons).
2. It's rubbing off on your attitude some, which may make it harder to find a new job you like.
3. You don't have the independence to just do what you like, or to quit and find a job full time.
I wouldn't suggest quitting immediately, because of 2 and 3, but you should probably keep looking locally for something that seems a better fit.
My suggestions would be to study the job market as hard as you do any programming problem. The "plum jobs" are generally specialized to a certain skill set and are hard to find without experience and contacts, so manage your expectations on that front. You aren't going to necessarily find something you like better just because you want to. You have to look at what companies are hiring and try to advertise yourself to meet their needs, especially in a new city.
Leaving in the first 6 months because you aren't a "good fit" isn't a total black mark, as long as you don't make a habit of it, but it always seems like it's easier to find a new job if you've already got one.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#107Can I ask what the legacy stack was? You can email me if you are afraid to narrow the scope of possible places. Similar thing happened to me once. I ended up toughing it out for a year, spent my evenings learning stuff I wanted to work on so it wasn't a lost year, and then leaving.
Webforms is the newest thing. Most is far older
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#108Oh you web people. That code has aged like a fine wine.
Consider the emacs developer. He works on legacy code dating back 41 years, to 1976.
Consider the BRL-CAD developer. He works on legacy code dating back 33 years, to 1983.
Consider the gcc developer. He works with legacy code dating back 29 years, to 1988.
Consider the SPICE developer. He works with legacy code dating back more than 44 years, to 1973 or earlier.
Consider the Windows developer. He works with legacy code dating back more than 32 years, to 1985 or earlier.
Do you happen to be younger than all of the above? These projects are all still actively used and developed. At least the first three are thought to still have full source control revision history. Any of them would look great on a resume. All of them are written in languages that were designed prior to 1980, making the youngest language 38 years old. At least one of them is largely in a language from 1958, which is 59 years ago.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#109Couple of questions to focus your decision making: Did they pay for your relocation expenses? If so, is there a clause in your employment contract to pay it back if you leave within a given period of time? Do you want to stay in your new city? If you are unhappy enough to leave, then why not bail up the manager who hired you, tell them point-blank that they lied to you and you know that the "round the corner" talk is…
> Don't worry about it being shitty legacy stuff. This. One of my specialities is unpicking and debugging legacy code bases, often 20+ year old mud balls. It isn't glamorous work, but you do get a few decent war stories out of it to recall in the pub. My preference is to hire devs who've put in the hours in these environments. I see it as something of a right of passage and indicates to me you've got the experience a…
Agreed! Seeing it done wrong provides lessons in how to do it right. Probably one of reasons why we read DailyWtf.com.
Re: Ask HN: I got duped into working on legacy code, should I leave?
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's difficult to be proud of anything I'm doing :). Whenever I propose a design for something, I'm told to do it the fastest way which is usually a bad hack. I'm amazed the code works at all. The stack traces are more than twenty deep sometimes. I can't stand to look at it for more than 20 minutes without a break. I need to be more careful next time I'm looking for a job
> Whenever I propose a design for something, I'm told to do it the fastest way which is usually a bad hack. And why do you agree? One of the differences between professionals and other workers is that professionals are experts in how to do their work. If I tell my doctor to just write me a prescription because I said so, she'll just scoff. I can make requests, but she decides what will happen and how. Especially if y…
Even doctors understand that sometimes it's necessary to meet unrealistic deadline by doing quick and dirty hacks.
When you or I break our collar bone, the doctor will immobilise it in a sling for 4-8 weeks while it heals.
If you're chasing a motorcycle world championship though, they'll go in and screw it back together with titanium support and get you back to top-level performance in 2 days: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/108388
Sometimes you need to cut your code open, jam in some temporary scaffolding or duct tape, then stitch it back closed again - promising yourself you'll go back in and take the kludged fix back out when deadlines and circumstances are less critical...