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Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

mkdev.me

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Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#61

Post by pjc50 »

tboyd47 wrote: post #56

> Code review at the end of the task. This is something I still struggle with. I think it's a result of an open source tool (GitHub) bringing bits of culture along with it. In open source world, all contributions are entirely voluntary, and most follow the Benevolent Dictator For Life form of governance. So you do a bunch of work, and you submit a polite request for the BDFL to pull your work into the project. He or…

> willingness to throw away work becomes a mark of pride at some places

Is this a typo for "willingness"?

Code review is important not just for preventing junk from entering the codebase but for ensuring that someone else has seen the thing and has some idea of how it works. I agree that "pull request" is the wrong terminology for a commercial environment.

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#62

Post by tboyd47 »

detaro wrote: post #57
tboyd47 wrote: post #56

> Code review at the end of the task. This is something I still struggle with. I think it's a result of an open source tool (GitHub) bringing bits of culture along with it. In open source world, all contributions are entirely voluntary, and most follow the Benevolent Dictator For Life form of governance. So you do a bunch of work, and you submit a polite request for the BDFL to pull your work into the project. He or…

> Maybe enterprise projects need some kind of "managed push" system instead of a "pull request" system. What would you do different in "managed push"?

Not sure? Maybe letting developers push directly to master, with an automated test run at each commit and a project manager or tech lead in charge of tagging and deploying releases?

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#63

Post by stochastic_monk »

dwc wrote: post #48
pgsandstrom wrote: post #13

> It turned out that the project I was invited to started as early as 2014. Do you think it means that it’s big and complicated? Then you’re right. And it’s also really old. Is it just me, or is less that four years not "really old"?

Of course it's not really old. Though in my experience age has only a loose correlation to overall code quality. Some really old programs were well architected to start and have been carefully maintained. OTOH, I've worked with devs who are one-person technical debt factories, and allowed to work on relatively young and sparse applications will quickly make it an unmaintainable monstrosity.

My lab has a tool which has been actively maintained for 10 years and has a full-time employee supporting it and a related follow-up from 3 years later.

It takes a lot of effort to keep cross-platform support while continuously improving it. Granted, not every project deserves that kind of effort, but I respect the effort it takes to keep software up-to-date.

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#64

Post by xstartup »

tboyd47 wrote: post #56

> Code review at the end of the task. This is something I still struggle with. I think it's a result of an open source tool (GitHub) bringing bits of culture along with it. In open source world, all contributions are entirely voluntary, and most follow the Benevolent Dictator For Life form of governance. So you do a bunch of work, and you submit a polite request for the BDFL to pull your work into the project. He or…

What do you mean by throw away? The submitter can always make the requested changes. And if the pull requests are not even relevant then it's entirely a different issue.

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#65

Post by aalleavitch »

jlongster wrote: post #58
aalleavitch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely the situation I am in right now, and I desperately need all the guidance I can get. We’re talking thousands of lines of React components that rely regularly on manipulating global js variables, mixed with MVC 5 written in Razor delivering variables in script tags, mixed with outdated jQuery, that’s all just concat’d together with gulp and that hasn’t seen a refactor in years of changing hands with…

You need to tell your manager that it's simply impossible to both clean all that up and also make progress on the project. You need to stop the erosion in order to fix it; fixing will require fundamental changes that will absolutely block progress. If aren't able to freeze the project, your cleanup progress will be constantly thwarted by new ugly hacks. There's just no way around it. If your managers won't freeze the…

Unfortunately there are business reasons why freezing the code is impossible. We’re ecommerce and working on a timeline dictated by consumer behavior. So if we need a promo tomorrow it’s going live or else we’re not making budget. I kind of assume this is how we got into this state to begin with.

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#66

Post by JoeAltmaier »

pgsandstrom wrote: post #13

> It turned out that the project I was invited to started as early as 2014. Do you think it means that it’s big and complicated? Then you’re right. And it’s also really old. Is it just me, or is less that four years not "really old"?

My sister (contracting to a large global tire company) texted me yesterday, that she'd had to modify a module that was 30 years old!

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#67

Post by Kesty »

aalleavitch wrote: post #47
dep_b wrote: post #14

You need to get the programmers together and agree on a coding guideline, a linter and other architectural fundamentals. Then the gardening phase begins, which means no refactoring or warning or style fixes unless you touch the code to do something meaningful like a feature or bug fix. Leave everything you touch better than before. Dissolve big classes and functions into smaller ones. Write a test or two for the smal…

This is absolutely the situation I am in right now, and I desperately need all the guidance I can get. We’re talking thousands of lines of React components that rely regularly on manipulating global js variables, mixed with MVC 5 written in Razor delivering variables in script tags, mixed with outdated jQuery, that’s all just concat’d together with gulp and that hasn’t seen a refactor in years of changing hands with…

Welcome to code development in the real world 101.

You either go insane, give up and take up beekeeping, start your own company or finally decide to not give a shit anymore and start hacking the same way as everybody else because in the end your are not sending astronauts to Mars, and it works "most of the time" is good enough for the clients and the price and time they are willing to pay.

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#68

Post by tboyd47 »

xstartup wrote: post #64
tboyd47 wrote: post #56

> Code review at the end of the task. This is something I still struggle with. I think it's a result of an open source tool (GitHub) bringing bits of culture along with it. In open source world, all contributions are entirely voluntary, and most follow the Benevolent Dictator For Life form of governance. So you do a bunch of work, and you submit a polite request for the BDFL to pull your work into the project. He or…

What do you mean by throw away? The submitter can always make the requested changes. And if the pull requests are not even relevant then it's entirely a different issue.

Meaning the submitter just spent one week writing code that will have to be written over again. If they had requested feedback informally before the PR, they would have written the code correctly the first time.

Re: Maintaining code quality when nobody cares

#69

Post by Kesty »

aalleavitch wrote: post #65
jlongster wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to tell your manager that it's simply impossible to both clean all that up and also make progress on the project. You need to stop the erosion in order to fix it; fixing will require fundamental changes that will absolutely block progress. If aren't able to freeze the project, your cleanup progress will be constantly thwarted by new ugly hacks. There's just no way around it. If your managers won't freeze the…

Unfortunately there are business reasons why freezing the code is impossible. We’re ecommerce and working on a timeline dictated by consumer behavior. So if we need a promo tomorrow it’s going live or else we’re not making budget. I kind of assume this is how we got into this state to begin with.

And unfortunately nothing will change because what you want to do is better in every single way, but their way of doing thing is better in the only one that actually counts: It's faster and cheaper.
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