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"As I am fairly new on the team" This is the key point. Yes refactoring is not a bad idea but have you spent enough time with the current codebase to understan
by codegeek 9y ago
"As I am fairly new on the team"
This is the key point. Yes refactoring is not a bad idea but have you spent enough time with the current codebase to understand why things are done the way they are ? Even if the code is sphagetti, the point is that you may not have all the background yet on things and you need to spend a bit more time understanding everything before you suggest major refactoring. Not to mention that unless it helps with real dollars (more money for the team/company), you may face resistance.
Having said that, don't be afraid to challenge status quo but make sure you have enough background information before making assumptions. It is much easier to come from outside and look at everything being broken (which may very well be but still need to understand it in detail).
- ThorinJacobs 9y agoThis is really great advice. You're right - it's really easy to make assumptions about the code and it's definitely caught me at least once! So far I've been trying to keep my changes in service of a specific feature, and keep as light-touch on existing code as possible whole still making improvements. Wrapper classes have helped with this a lot.
- UK-Al05 9y agoThe fact that a newcomer has difficulty reading the code implies it's bad. Not simply a lack of understanding. Good code should be easy to pickup even for newcomers. Now there maybe reasons why it's bad, time constraints, no time for re-evaluating the design. But that doesnt change the fact that it's bad.