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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?

#111

Post by cheeze »

badminton1 wrote: post #105
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…

Rewrites are riskier when requirements need to be reverse engineered from the current solution, or if requirements are complex. When requirements are simple, rewriting should be simple. This should at least give you the opportunity to contain technical debt to the most complex requirements. To say "everything is complex therefore we cannot rewrite anything" is pretty implausible and mediocre.

I disagree. Rewrites are risky because you're changing code that has been working for some time. It is easy to introduce bugs into a sufficiently complex system when refactoring.

"The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they’ve been fixed. There’s nothing wrong with it." - Joel Spolsky

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

#112

Post by ashton314 »

cimmanom wrote: post #3

Are you working at my company? Ok, more seriously: that’s the way existing code is about 90% of the time - it’s the reality of working in our field. It may or may not reflect on the original developer. Maybe they were learning a new framework. Maybe they were rushed. Maybe it was originally intended as a prototype but ended up in production. Maybe the requirements have grown or changed significantly since it was impl…

> Then give them a few options with trade-offs.

I had (well, I’m in the middle of it, so have) to fix a few bugs in a project that are the by-products of a deeply flawed architecture. I came to my boss and explained a handful of ways that I could potentially solve the problems, and made it really clear that the best way to go would be to completely redo this one part. He agreed with me, though he wasn’t happy about how much work was involved. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Hopefully your managers will appreciate you giving them options.

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

#113

Post by cheeze »

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…

Agree with all of this.

I don't work at a small company but refactoring and especially rewriting code is difficult and error prone. It's a crazy thought but in many cases, it can be better to just leave the legacy code alone. It's all about ROI of your time and the opportunity cost of what you're working on.

If you're going to be making lots of changes to a specific part of the code base, then it very well may make sense to invest in improving it so r hat you can move faster after. But if the code isnt going to be modified much, it may be better to just get in, make the changes you need, and get out.

As a mid level developer, nobody is expecting you to come in and rebuilt the thing immediately. Focus on learning it well first.

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

#114

Post by jhanschoo »

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?

More precisely, your labor is the resource.

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

#116

Post by askmike »

haney wrote: post #104

Start writing tests, change no production code. You need to understand how it works (by reverse engineering its behavior with tests you’ll learn this) and you need to verify your changes don’t accidentally change existing behavior unless the existing behavior is verifiably wrong, and hey, you may find instances of this too, but don’t start making changes until you have a suite of tests that can spot behavior changes.…

I think you are right, though in my experience in these situations is that defining the exact behavior is very hard. In not many cases was the messy code written messy from the start, it's usually an accumulation of changes (to behavior) - which are very hard to figure out.

I've found it's also hard to test code that isn't modular and split up: before you can test anything you need to mock 2 database connections, one external API endpoint and reading/writing from 3 different folder locations. Either that or you split them up yourself and risk breaking something.

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

#117

Post by gizmo686 »

sidlls wrote: post #98
foo101 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Where I work, "Human Resources" is just in charge of benifits/payroll/etc. Assigning people to projects is done by the resource manager, a completly unrelated posistion.

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

#118

Post by BurningFrog »

This is how most real world code is.

You might be the exception, but when you've been working on code for a while, your code is probably like this to an outsider too.

The difference is that you have a ton of insider knowledge in your head that makes the code understandable. The person who wrote the code you now hate probably does too.

I've learned to enjoy fixing up projects like these. You can learn an enormous amount from fixing bad code, and I truly have! Unfortunately it's probably something you have to learn for yourself. Just try to have a good attitude about it OK?

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

#119

Post by bacon_waffle »

> The person in charge of this project was working on it alone and from the outside it all looks fine and it's working. So this makes the higher people think that it's all just fine. I really don't know what to do. Should I just go and basically say that this person did a bad job?

I think the only reason that you should be concerned with "this person", is to influence them (or better, the work environment) to discourage the behaviour that led to the problems you're struggling with. For that to be effective, you need to stay positive.

Remember that it's much more powerful when someone learns something themselves, compared to being told that same thing. If the code is broken/fragile, then you'll be presented with opportunities to show positive examples of how your work is improving things. Folks who know the history of the code will hopefully see what's going on.

The codebase isn't going to be magicked in to a better state through political moves, so assuming that you stay on, you'll need to come to terms with it.

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