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(Genuine question.) Do you think "small changes" shouldn't be "tacked on in the easiest places"? I'll try to give an example I hope is realistic: One of the h

(Genuine question.) Do you think "small changes" shouldn't be "tacked on in the easiest places"? I'll try to give an example I hope is realistic: One of the heaviest things an application can get is a complete theme system. Suppose you don't have one. It's not a requirement. Adding a theme system when there is none is months of work and might impact basically every line of code that displays anything. So you're not doing it. Now for some exceptional system there is just one case where somewhere you are displaying something under an external widget that doesn't meet its size constraints or whatever - long story short your text is invisible, you want to inverse the font to get it working. You don't have any code like that. Do you think it is OK to add it to the easiest possible place: in this case perhaps you add an optional argument called "need_to_invert_color" (this awkward phrasing tells you it's a hack) to a single function, default it as false, comment it as: //invert the color of the font. This is needed where an external graphing widget with a black background leaks onto our canvas due to not respecting our pixel boundaries, so that our text displays over it. And then where you call comment the same thing, that //currently a bug in the widget code makes the widget leak xyz pixels below its bottom border. As a temporary fix we introduce an argument need_to_invert_color into our display function. As of this writing 3 Jan 2019 we are just using it from here. The correct fix would be for the widget to stop leaking instead, and when that is done white text is unnecessary - and we might not notice. So we start by testing whether the area we will be overlaid over is indeed the wrong color. ETC. In other words a quick hack for a corner case, that doesn't fix the underlying bug (workaround) and even as a hack makes use of something that doesn't exist (a theme system), instead adding and documenting a half-assed thing tacked on.

quietbritishjim 8y ago
Of course this is just my opinion, but in many situations I think tacking one small change on to the easiest place is fine. My comment earlier wasn't meant as a criticism of that practice. It's just I would consider refactoring after this happens multiple times: at some point, all those little tweaks can add up enough that the original design of the "core" code gets lost in the noise. When exactly is the right time can be hard to figure out. Especially because, if enough hacks have accumulated that code really does need a reshuffle, then the job of refactoring is harder, which actually increases the temptation to put it off. But I wouldn't make a big sweeping change just because of one small hack that's a bit ugly.
- logicallee 8y ago
  Thanks, this answers my question. I had always thought documenting half-assed solutions was particularly important not just for anyone looking at the code (to understand the whole code quickly, if they're new to it, make changes, etc - or even if the author comes back 6 months later, to be reminded of the assumptions that led to the hacks) but because whoever finally sits down to architect the rewrite will have some indications of the "hacks" (degrees of freedom) that must be made possible in the proper version. I thought they (or I) would sit down, have all the documented hacks on one side of their table, then use them to architect a nice solution that the hacks can then use instead, kind of like a requirements document. This was my thinking on a lot of projects. But you know what? That rewrite never became necessary! So not only did I not start with the "right" architecture - I didn't end with it either! That's what "many small hacks in the easiest of places" reminded me of and I wondered if you in fact do approve of it. It has always seemed fine for me. Just no problem at all. But with documentation right there and the worse the hack, the clearer the documentation right there explaining and justifying it, up to and including "I don't know why this works but this system call makes the next line succeed, whereas removing it causes the next line to fail sometimes - this is tested in testxzy." Obviously a hack, a terrible hack if you don't know why it works. And a project can end up with a lot of these.

quietbritishjim 8y ago

Of course this is just my opinion, but in many situations I think tacking one small change on to the easiest place is fine. My comment earlier wasn't meant as a criticism of that practice. It's just I would consider refactoring after this happens multiple times: at some point, all those little tweaks can add up enough that the original design of the "core" code gets lost in the noise. When exactly is the right time can be hard to figure out. Especially because, if enough hacks have accumulated that code really does need a reshuffle, then the job of refactoring is harder, which actually increases the temptation to put it off. But I wouldn't make a big sweeping change just because of one small hack that's a bit ugly.

logicallee 8y ago
Thanks, this answers my question. I had always thought documenting half-assed solutions was particularly important not just for anyone looking at the code (to understand the whole code quickly, if they're new to it, make changes, etc - or even if the author comes back 6 months later, to be reminded of the assumptions that led to the hacks) but because whoever finally sits down to architect the rewrite will have some indications of the "hacks" (degrees of freedom) that must be made possible in the proper version. I thought they (or I) would sit down, have all the documented hacks on one side of their table, then use them to architect a nice solution that the hacks can then use instead, kind of like a requirements document. This was my thinking on a lot of projects. But you know what? That rewrite never became necessary! So not only did I not start with the "right" architecture - I didn't end with it either! That's what "many small hacks in the easiest of places" reminded me of and I wondered if you in fact do approve of it. It has always seemed fine for me. Just no problem at all. But with documentation right there and the worse the hack, the clearer the documentation right there explaining and justifying it, up to and including "I don't know why this works but this system call makes the next line succeed, whereas removing it causes the next line to fail sometimes - this is tested in testxzy." Obviously a hack, a terrible hack if you don't know why it works. And a project can end up with a lot of these.