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To answer most questions here: Yes, nowadays there are cross-platform libraries you can use instead of implementing that yourself. And yes code that has grown f

by erikb 11y ago

To answer most questions here: Yes, nowadays there are cross-platform libraries you can use instead of implementing that yourself. And yes code that has grown for centuries and contains unnecessary things or patterns that aren't used nowadays can be refactored. Or at least that's how I'd interpret the article.

ProAm 11y ago
I really dislike the code review witch hunts you see on HN (or anywhere). On one side of the coin you have startups that merely want to get something thrown together with duct tape, working and ship so they can refactor later and clean things up. On the other hand you have people writing blogs posts to humble brag their code reading and blogging ability. No one knows the circumstances that created this original code. The developer may have been working on 10 projects and threw something together just so it'd work. If it ain't broke....
- x0x0 11y ago
  A previous employer had a codebase that generated, on a full compilation, at least 10k warnings. That same codebase powered $200mm/year in revenue.
  - omegaham 11y ago
    And if your developer time is better spent on producing more features than cleaning up your previously made code, you'll end up with 10.5k warnings. I'm sure that someone will freak out and cry, but as long as you can keep extending it and working with it, why fix it? Of course, technical debt builds up, and eventually you're badly locked in until you refactor, so it's a balancing act.
    - erikb 11y ago
      Totally in for the balancing act. And additionally in an open source project it's possible to refactor for code beauty, because you can choose so for other reasons than resource management.
    - nwmcsween 11y ago
      You're only looking at it from a sort of incompetent manager perspective. Those 10k warnings will produce exploits, they also make reasoning about the code much much harder costing time and money or even worse nobody understands it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by erikb 11y ago

ProAm 11y ago

I really dislike the code review witch hunts you see on HN (or anywhere). On one side of the coin you have startups that merely want to get something thrown together with duct tape, working and ship so they can refactor later and clean things up. On the other hand you have people writing blogs posts to humble brag their code reading and blogging ability. No one knows the circumstances that created this original code. The developer may have been working on 10 projects and threw something together just so it'd work. If it ain't broke....

x0x0 11y ago
A previous employer had a codebase that generated, on a full compilation, at least 10k warnings. That same codebase powered $200mm/year in revenue.
- omegaham 11y ago
  And if your developer time is better spent on producing more features than cleaning up your previously made code, you'll end up with 10.5k warnings. I'm sure that someone will freak out and cry, but as long as you can keep extending it and working with it, why fix it? Of course, technical debt builds up, and eventually you're badly locked in until you refactor, so it's a balancing act.
  - erikb 11y ago
    Totally in for the balancing act. And additionally in an open source project it's possible to refactor for code beauty, because you can choose so for other reasons than resource management.
  - nwmcsween 11y ago
    You're only looking at it from a sort of incompetent manager perspective. Those 10k warnings will produce exploits, they also make reasoning about the code much much harder costing time and money or even worse nobody understands it.
deleted 11y ago
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