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I believe one of the biggest growth steps on the path from junior intern to senior fellow is recognizing that code does not rot, and refactoring code biweekly b
by nikanj 1y ago
I believe one of the biggest growth steps on the path from junior intern to senior fellow is recognizing that code does not rot, and refactoring code biweekly because someone thought of yet another way to organize it brings zero business value.
"That code is old and the paradigms are dated" is uttered with the same disdain as "That shed is old and the floorboards have dry rot"
The best thing that happens to a startup is actual traction and paying customers, because once that happens the refactoring churn is usually shoved to the back burner
- codr7 1y agoThe understanding of the code certainly degrades, which means any updates cause the code to lose its integrity over time.
- nikanj 1y agoThe older code is, the more people probably have at least a passing understanding of it - just by virtue of osmosis and accidental exposure. A thorough rewrite means only the person who wrote is is familiar with it. Of course you can start a code review policy and make sure everyone at the dev team has gone through all of the code that gets written, but that becomes a ludicrous bottleneck when the team grows
- codr7 1y agoOnce the code is mature and only needs sporadic updates, that's not true anymore from my experience. The story around the code is lost, people leave and the developers who make changes weren't around when the code was first written.