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Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

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Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#91

Post by paulie_a »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #6

Is it buggy? Is it insecure? Is it slow? If the answers to those questions are no. Then you the problem and you should look for employment elsewhere. You are unhappy in that job, and you rewriting the codebase would potentially make the above questions answer to a YES, inflicting damages in the company. Now, if the above questions have yes as an answer. Talk to your manager, explain how it won't scale, how it is hack…

Why can't you badmouth the previous developer? Sometimes they were simply shit developers and wrote large quantities of shit code. Circumstances be damned, I've seen a few developers that should outright find a new career.

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#92

Post by hamandcheese » 

  - get assigned a task/project
  - when your changes interact with existing code, take some time to write tests
  - refactor as necessary so that you aren't making things worse
This is what you should do day to day as a software developer. Don't ask for permission to refactor, just do it (using your best judgment) as you also deliver features.

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#93

Post by marcus_holmes »

caymanjim wrote: post #87

Don't fix things just for the sake of fixing them. Let new features, bugs, or necessary performance improvements drive your changes. Keep your changes small and focused. You need to ensure that you're delivering business value with each change, rather than embarking on an overwhelming, open-ended task. This is critical if you want the business to support your effort. It demonstrates pragmatism. It will shrink the sco…

I would agree. Your job is to implement the new features and leave the code in a better state than when you found it.

As a professional programmer, your job is not to produce beautiful code. Your job is to make money.

There is a commercial decision for the organisation to make about paying back the tech debt in this code base. That's not your decision to make. Likewise, it's not your decision to create more tech debt if you can avoid it (sometimes you can't because deadlines are more important than tech debt).

As the parent said, your best course is to implement the new features, and refactor where it makes sense to do that to support the new features. But without any test suite, you risk breaking the existing features by doing anything more than the absolute minimum of refactoring. That's bad.

Good luck. And welcome to the profession hehe

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#94

Post by wmij »

Assuming your project has an issue tracking system, start adding issues - bugs, technical tasks, improvements, etc. for things you find and discover. If there are no unit tests, add an issue to create unit tests. If there are missing unit tests, add a technical task to create the missing unit tests or expand coverage.

If your project doesn't have an issue tracking system, then recommend something simple that fits into the tech you have, i.e. GitHub or whatever.

Use the issue tracking to create and document the shortcomings and technical problems you're seeing so that the more senior and leads of the projects have documented visibility into what you are seeing with the code and the application.

For example create a technical task: "Add unit test coverage for user sign up" or for whatever gaps you're seeing in testing.

In my projects I always make sure that we have a category available for "technical tasks" and/or "system stories" to document anything that is engineering/code/refactoring/devops related vs. user facing functionality.

If these channels don't exist, then you need to recommend that they are established so you can document and track specific issues you're seeing.

Also, since you've recently joined, any team that brings on new members should be open to what you're seeing as someone new with a fresh perspective and be open to learning from you as much as what you need to learn coming into a new project. Hopefully, your team has a culture that is open to new ideas and if so, don't be shy on bringing up technical issues in standups, chat discussions, PR comments, etc.

Just be proactive in documenting your specific issues, ideas and what you're seeing, ideally through the established issue tracking system. Be prepared to offer, document and communicate solutions to the problems and gaps you're seeing.

Good luck with the new project and I hope it works out for you and your team.

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#95

Post by foo101 »

pudup wrote: post #79

So you're the new guy that's been assigned to this project...possibly at the request of the current developer who desperately needs help...possibly because it's the project that existing staff don't want to work on...possibly to learn the project so the current developer can be moved to other projects. Every software company has these projects and many developers have been in your position. As long as the software is…

> The fact a new resource (you) has ...

I am not familiar with this lingo. Why exactly is the OP a resource? Is this usage of "resource" common in business speak?

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#96

Post by warent »

foo101 wrote: post #95
pudup wrote: post #79

So you're the new guy that's been assigned to this project...possibly at the request of the current developer who desperately needs help...possibly because it's the project that existing staff don't want to work on...possibly to learn the project so the current developer can be moved to other projects. Every software company has these projects and many developers have been in your position. As long as the software is…

> The fact a new resource (you) has ... I am not familiar with this lingo. Why exactly is the OP a resource? Is this usage of "resource" common in business speak?

Swap out the word "resource" with "asset" if that helps. They're synonyms in this context. "A useful or valuable person."

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#97

Post by univerio »

foo101 wrote: post #95
pudup wrote: post #79

So you're the new guy that's been assigned to this project...possibly at the request of the current developer who desperately needs help...possibly because it's the project that existing staff don't want to work on...possibly to learn the project so the current developer can be moved to other projects. Every software company has these projects and many developers have been in your position. As long as the software is…

> The fact a new resource (you) has ... I am not familiar with this lingo. Why exactly is the OP a resource? Is this usage of "resource" common in business speak?

Are you familiar with the term "human resources"?

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#98

Post by sidlls »

foo101 wrote: post #95
pudup wrote: post #79

So you're the new guy that's been assigned to this project...possibly at the request of the current developer who desperately needs help...possibly because it's the project that existing staff don't want to work on...possibly to learn the project so the current developer can be moved to other projects. Every software company has these projects and many developers have been in your position. As long as the software is…

> The fact a new resource (you) has ... I am not familiar with this lingo. Why exactly is the OP a resource? Is this usage of "resource" common in business speak?

Yes. "Human Resources" is quite literal. Management discuss allocation of resources (i.e. engineers) to teams, open REQs (requisitions) for resources, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#99

Post by asattarmd »

foo101 wrote: post #95
pudup wrote: post #79

So you're the new guy that's been assigned to this project...possibly at the request of the current developer who desperately needs help...possibly because it's the project that existing staff don't want to work on...possibly to learn the project so the current developer can be moved to other projects. Every software company has these projects and many developers have been in your position. As long as the software is…

> The fact a new resource (you) has ... I am not familiar with this lingo. Why exactly is the OP a resource? Is this usage of "resource" common in business speak?

What do you think HR is abbreviation for?

Re: Ask HN: Codebase at my work is a complete mess, what should I do?

#100

Post by neves »

foo101 wrote: post #95
pudup wrote: post #79

So you're the new guy that's been assigned to this project...possibly at the request of the current developer who desperately needs help...possibly because it's the project that existing staff don't want to work on...possibly to learn the project so the current developer can be moved to other projects. Every software company has these projects and many developers have been in your position. As long as the software is…

> The fact a new resource (you) has ... I am not familiar with this lingo. Why exactly is the OP a resource? Is this usage of "resource" common in business speak?

Unfortunately, yes. We are just replaceable cogs.
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