4 ms·

While I wouldn't want to do it, if you've been working on that codebase for years and you're no longer young and fired up about always going for the latest thin

While I wouldn't want to do it, if you've been working on that codebase for years and you're no longer young and fired up about always going for the latest things, it could be a good way to sunset your career. A guaranteed position using technology you understand rather than being thrown out into the job market, struggling to get up to date on the latest programming fads so you can compete with people half your age, would be nice for many.

brundolf 5y ago
That's fair! I guess I just assume the codebase is terrible (not just because of age, but also judging by the end-product) and will remain terrible; why would you do a refactor, or optimize something, or add new features when it's become a niche project that nobody likes and is on its way out? It's probably just patching over critical bugs from here forward It's not just about doing something new; a bad codebase that I don't have the opportunity to genuinely improve is probably the most miserable type of project I can possibly think of
- Tostino 5y ago
  If the task is just "keep this working", I could see plenty of people being alright with not making major changes to a codebase. It pays the bills, and that's all a good number of people care about.
  - bigyikes 5y ago
    And that is all they should care about if the product is EOL. Good software engineering is all about building something that meets current business needs while being flexible enough to adapt to future needs. When you lose this flexibility, you need to refactor or changes become too difficult to implement. IE11 isn’t getting any new features. It’s in maintenance mode. Cleaning up the code in major ways at this point would be a waste of time.
    - ido 5y ago
      If I was in that position and had nothing else to do, why not leisurely refactor and clean up the code in a piecemeal fashion?
      - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        risk vs reward
      - chronogram 5y ago
        I could really only see that if your job title is "IE11 maintainer" and for the next 10 years you clock in, drink coffee and chat while waiting for a CVE to come in to fix. But you'd still rather not touch anything because there's really only risk and no reward to it. Realistically it'll just be part of a far larger security team that fixes bugs in a large number of software preferably prioritising bugs based on severity where there's always going to be something better to do than mess with old codebases.
nly 5y ago
What makes you think they won't just lump it on a couple of juniors who rarely ever touch it, and even then only for critical bugfixes?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
simonh 5y ago
True. If you really, deeply know COM and vintage C++ you can make a lot of money contracting in New York to this day.

brundolf 5y ago

That's fair! I guess I just assume the codebase is terrible (not just because of age, but also judging by the end-product) and will remain terrible; why would you do a refactor, or optimize something, or add new features when it's become a niche project that nobody likes and is on its way out? It's probably just patching over critical bugs from here forward It's not just about doing something new; a bad codebase that I don't have the opportunity to genuinely improve is probably the most miserable type of project I can possibly think of

Tostino 5y ago
If the task is just "keep this working", I could see plenty of people being alright with not making major changes to a codebase. It pays the bills, and that's all a good number of people care about.
- bigyikes 5y ago
  And that is all they should care about if the product is EOL. Good software engineering is all about building something that meets current business needs while being flexible enough to adapt to future needs. When you lose this flexibility, you need to refactor or changes become too difficult to implement. IE11 isn’t getting any new features. It’s in maintenance mode. Cleaning up the code in major ways at this point would be a waste of time.
  - ido 5y ago
    If I was in that position and had nothing else to do, why not leisurely refactor and clean up the code in a piecemeal fashion?
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      risk vs reward
    - chronogram 5y ago
      I could really only see that if your job title is "IE11 maintainer" and for the next 10 years you clock in, drink coffee and chat while waiting for a CVE to come in to fix. But you'd still rather not touch anything because there's really only risk and no reward to it. Realistically it'll just be part of a far larger security team that fixes bugs in a large number of software preferably prioritising bugs based on severity where there's always going to be something better to do than mess with old codebases.

nly 5y ago

What makes you think they won't just lump it on a couple of juniors who rarely ever touch it, and even then only for critical bugfixes?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

simonh 5y ago

True. If you really, deeply know COM and vintage C++ you can make a lot of money contracting in New York to this day.