Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 704 posts

Re: Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?

#221

Post by janee »

seasoup wrote: post #102

A lovely knot to unravel! First, get everything in source control! Next, make it possible to spin service up locally, pointing at production DB. Then, get the db running locally. Then get another server and get cd to that server, including creating the db, schema, and sample data. Then add tests, run on pr, then code review, then auto deploy to new server. This should stop the bleeding… no more index-new_2021-test-jo…

Good strategy. I would suggest not hooking it up to prod DB at the start. Rather script out something to restore prod DB backups nightly to a staging env. That way you can hookup non prod instances to it and keep testing as the other engineers continue with what they do until you can do a flip over as suggested. Key here is always having a somewhat up to date DB that matches prod but isn't prod so you don't step on toes and have time to figure this out.

Note that going from no source control to first CD instance in prod is going to take time...so assume you need a roll out strat that won't block the other enigneers.

Considering what sounds like reluctance for change the switch to source control is also going to be hard. You might want to consider scripting something that takes the prod code and dumps it into SC automatically, until you have prod CD going...after that the engineers switch over to your garden variety commit based reviews and manual trigger prod deploy.

Good luck! It sounds like a interesting problem

Re: Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?

#223

Post by rocqua »

academia_hack wrote: post #158

I've been in almost this exact same situation with a slightly smaller team and "only" about $5 million running through the tangled web of php. We did a complete rewrite into a Django application, it took 2 years and untold political pain but was absolutely the correct choice. The legacy code was beyond saving and everyone on the team agreed with this assessment - meaning our political battles were only outward facing…

This sounds like the story of a proper, piecemeal, rewrite where the whole team was on board.

Re: Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?

#225

Post by molteanu »

ncmncm wrote: post #113
rudi_mk wrote: post #104

Save yourself a lot of trauma and get out of this mess. Been in a similar situation, spent five years trying to fix things, gave up. Could have saved myself some of the therapy I now need.

This alternative is not to be neglected. You don't have to save the whole world. Save what you can that is worth saving. If you are competent to build good new things, do that.

Why is 'saving the world' even on the table here or in similar cases? Guys making $20mil a year don't look to me like they need saving from above. If you have that kind of money I trust you know what you're doing and can pay for help when help is needed. Otherwise, you don't deserve that cash. Other people might spend it better.

I, for one, have never been saved out of good heart or pitty. Every doctor visit somehow results in money being transfered from my bank account to theirs.

Re: Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?

#226

Post by markvdb »

jmole wrote: post #5

rewriting would probably be the biggest mistake you could make. you need to refactor things little by little, and avoid making changes that would be made redundant later by changes that happen later on. figure out what you want to fix first, and then fix that. then go to the next thing. but keep in mind - "management and HQ has no real understanding", and as far as they are concerned, what they have works. if this do…

> you are effectively the property manager for a run-down rental property.

This is an incredibly powerful analogy. Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?

#228

Post by woopwoop24 »

i would suggest you take some money and hire someone from the outside to tell management and the devs exactly that. They will listen because it is coming from the outside. Then after that you can decide whether to change something or not, Does not matter what. personally i would also go for the low hanging fruits first: - backups of the database - git push all the code which lives on production

rewrites are super dangerous, double if the team is junior then they would need to double all the features, migrate, develop the skills they lack now, otherwise same mess in the end with a new framework and so on.

Re: Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?

#229

Post by dmje »

fny wrote: post #64

> this code generates more than 20 million dollars a year of revenue From a business perspective, nothing is broken. In fact, they laid a golden goose. > team is 3 people, quite junior. One backend, one front, one iOS/android. Resistance to change is huge. My mistake, they didn't lay a golden goose--they built a money printer. The ROI here is insane. > productivity is abysmal which is understandable. The mess is just…

Great answer. Developers are gunna hate it
Post reply on HN