Comments on: When you can’t just start over http://meganmcdermott.com/2008/01/15/when-you-cant-just-start-over/ Web design and that Fri, 04 May 2012 23:55:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Ruben http://meganmcdermott.com/2008/01/15/when-you-cant-just-start-over/comment-page-1/#comment-15535 Ruben Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:24:21 +0000 http://www.meganmcdermott.com/2008/01/15/when-you-cant-just-start-over/#comment-15535 I don't do much CSS or client side but I know the general feeling about having to fix code that stinks. I have been seriously thinking about to just decline to do that kind of work. The general problem here of course is that people that pay for software never read code. To even think that they should have some appreciation of beautiful code.... well, it is not about to happen any day soon. As long as the code does the work it is good code.... The only way to their ears is to talk about maintenance cost. "This code sucks and I would have been able to do the change twice as fast if the code had been nice and tidy." The reply most often is a resigned: "ok - but your fix is still cheaper than the rewrite.". Another related thing that distrubs me is when I write a nice piece of code and sign it with my name. Then some other person ruins my nice code with nasty fixes and doesn't sign his work so it still appears as if I actually coded the thing. (Ok - the versioning system keeps track of this but still....) I don’t do much CSS or client side but I know the general feeling about having to fix code that stinks. I have been seriously thinking about to just decline to do that kind of work. The general problem here of course is that people that pay for software never read code. To even think that they should have some appreciation of beautiful code…. well, it is not about to happen any day soon. As long as the code does the work it is good code…. The only way to their ears is to talk about maintenance cost. “This code sucks and I would have been able to do the change twice as fast if the code had been nice and tidy.” The reply most often is a resigned: “ok – but your fix is still cheaper than the rewrite.”.

Another related thing that distrubs me is when I write a nice piece of code and sign it with my name. Then some other person ruins my nice code with nasty fixes and doesn’t sign his work so it still appears as if I actually coded the thing. (Ok – the versioning system keeps track of this but still….)

]]> By: Adam H http://meganmcdermott.com/2008/01/15/when-you-cant-just-start-over/comment-page-1/#comment-15484 Adam H Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:26:30 +0000 http://www.meganmcdermott.com/2008/01/15/when-you-cant-just-start-over/#comment-15484 Do what I do. Start working on the replacement version in free moments so eventually you can roll it out from scratch. It is like a branch in the versioning, patches can still be applied to the old branch but the new branch is where all the development is going on. Good luck with that! Do what I do. Start working on the replacement version in free moments so eventually you can roll it out from scratch. It is like a branch in the versioning, patches can still be applied to the old branch but the new branch is where all the development is going on.

Good luck with that!

]]>