Who wrote this shit? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#31

Post by foxfluff » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

anthropodie wrote: post #23

ketanmaheshwari wrote: post #8

Feel like there has been increasingly more cuss / inappropriate words showing up on top page of HN. I recommend HN to my kids. Not that they are not exposed to these words online but I would rather not come this from their parent. Not sure how to feel.

Sounds like an opportunity for someone to create an extension that replaces these words with somethingm that would be good for kids.

clbuttic

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#32

Post by jansommer » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

I've been annoyed by my own legacy code long enough to try really hard to make sure the features being asked for are REALLY needed, simplifying things as much as possible before going into code. That's usually where most of the code is removed - sometimes all of it.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#33

Post by Cthulhu_ » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

I'm in a constant state of this in the codebase I inherited. The previous solo front-end developer was the manager of R&D so he couldn't be fired easily, he was the only person willing and sort of able to do front-end (PHP + JS/Dojo), he was super productive (most code was written in 2012/2013), but not a very competent or self-critical developer.

Think a back-end that concatenates XML into a big global string over the span of thousands of lines of code, then passes it to a function that parses it and outputs it again as JSON. Think functions spanning a thousand lines with triple-nested switch/case and if/else blocks Think a front-end where JS is used to concatenate HTML, CSS and more nested JS together into a string Said front-end will save and reload the currently active page on change of any form field, and there's dozens of form fields across dozens of dialog screens.

When I joined I was given free rein to rewrite it in the technologies I thought would suit best. It's been two years, at a stretch I'm about 20% of the way there. It's a project that needs one or two fully staffed development teams, but we have the budget for two people because our management resists faster growth or investments.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#34

Post by hdjjhhvvhga » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

TLDR: Torben.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#35

Post by Jerrrry » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #19

rozenmd wrote: post #4

My favourite is when you're a solopreneur working in your own repos and still asking yourself "who wrote this shit?!"

I heard a saying once: "all developers should be embarrassed about code they wrote more than a year ago" as a (cheeky) measure of ongoing growth and development. :-)

If you think of your own thoughts in the past and cringe, then your brain has grown since then.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#36

Post by throw__away7391 » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:17 PM UTC

ketanmaheshwari wrote: post #8

Feel like there has been increasingly more cuss / inappropriate words showing up on top page of HN. I recommend HN to my kids. Not that they are not exposed to these words online but I would rather not come this from their parent. Not sure how to feel.

This is a pretty entitled comment.

I'd suggest that if you don't want kids to read the word "shit" you keep them off the Internet entirely for life rather than running around trying to impose your morality on everyone else.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#37

Post by smoyer » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

It was me ... several times I have found a bug or code smell and then been surprised that the I was the original author. For the last fifteen to twenty years, I've generally found looking at code I wrote six months ago equally distasteful. So now my default behavior is to assume the code met the business function at the time, acknowledge that I'm continuously improving in my craft and finally, gained a joy in spending part of my time doing maintenance programming.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#38

Post by jnsaff2 » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #19

rozenmd wrote: post #4

My favourite is when you're a solopreneur working in your own repos and still asking yourself "who wrote this shit?!"

I heard a saying once: "all developers should be embarrassed about code they wrote more than a year ago" as a (cheeky) measure of ongoing growth and development. :-)

Pretty funny, about 15 years ago I started looking back at myself a year ago and decided that until that dude from a year ago looks like an idiot then all is well with my life. Hasn't failed yet.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#39

Post by nottorp » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

ketanmaheshwari wrote: post #8

Feel like there has been increasingly more cuss / inappropriate words showing up on top page of HN. I recommend HN to my kids. Not that they are not exposed to these words online but I would rather not come this from their parent. Not sure how to feel.

Isnt cursing a requirement to make electronic/mechanical stuff perform as specced? Im pretty sure my computers overclock when cursed at.

Re: Who wrote this shit?

#40

Post by skeeter2020 » Mon, Jan 10, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #33

I'm in a constant state of this in the codebase I inherited. The previous solo front-end developer was the manager of R&D so he couldn't be fired easily, he was the only person willing and sort of able to do front-end (PHP + JS/Dojo), he was super productive (most code was written in 2012/2013), but not a very competent or self-critical developer. Think a back-end that concatenates XML into a big global string over t…

>> Think a back-end that concatenates XML into a big global string over the span of thousands of lines of code, then passes it to a function that parses it and outputs it again as JSON.

If you squint hard enough this is cgi-bin