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@Oktokolo This client cant afford hiring a dev fulltime. Max 40-60 hours a month. Theres literally no time to refactor unless you love to work for free. Given the maintenance plus squeezing in new features there is no time to refactor.
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@topsecret230 Then it is beyond saving - not because of the technical issues but because of the social ones.
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@TheCommoner282 Sure, but there still is a huge difference between implementing a defined functionality set from scratch and analyzing all the code piece by piece, keeping all the actually implemented functionality refactoring it into something more maintainable step by step. The units of refactoring don't have to be actual units of code btw - they may be concepts like introducing dependency injection to make stuff testable.
The former normally looses edge case handling, and updates nobody ever cared to document. It also means either having to stop maintaining the old beast or working on two versions of the beast simultaneously.
And devs are different too - for some it is easier to write something from scratch, others excell in refactoring something existing.
So it can end in a rolling rewrite depending on how bad teh code base really is. But it doesn't always have to and even if it does, it might still be better to not start from scratch. -
Most project are bloated to hell, with no way of easy cleanup possible.
Save the time and start from scratch.
Webapp: any Jquery/Bootstrap/React app is beyong saving
Java App: are we in the 90s? Have you looked at all the vulnerabilites it has, No way i use this.
Layers of Abstractions: find a simpler way to build it, most of the time you don't even need abstractions anymore. -
@max19931 do not agree on the jQuery part. It's just a simple helper, doesn't define your application structure or so
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@retoor it was developed to provide an api on top of IE and the rest to get the same functions in all of them.
Long since replaced by the fact that IE is unsupported( and still lots of Corps use it), and all the other browsers supporting at least ES6 since 2016.
when your code is a mess but everything work out in the end
When you keep getting +1s on a rant you posted a month ago.
Go big or go home.
Have you encountered projects that were beyond saving?
Been freelancing for a client via agency for the past year. In the beginning the deal was to maintain identity verification sdk for android maybe 10-15 hours a month or so. Their flow consisted of around 25-30 screens, so I took it thinking it was easy. Boy I was wrong.
Codebase was and still is a complete spaghetti, backend weird and overcomplicated and impossible to talk with someone in backend. Had to reverse engineer their complicated flows many times just to make a small change on the app. There also are lots of issues with capturing/sending camera recordings especially on older devices. The fact that Im the only dev maintaining this doesnt help either.
First few months it was just maintenance, later some small features and soon it become a 40 hour a month gig. I was able to deal with it but then management changed, they started micromanaging me heavily and now they want me to do 60-70 hours a month. Also they asked to implement some unnecessarily complicated features and to be honest without refactoring most of the codebase I cant even begin to think of how to implement them.
Also workload in my main job increased. Started sacrificing my evenings, weekends and basically my wellbeing to work on their product. Tried to relax but then I realized Im just spending my freetime thinking about their project all of the time. Best part is that last few updates fucked up the whole flow and I dont even understand where the problem is anymore: backend, 3rd party integration issues or something else that I did.
Last friday told them that my availability changed and Im quitting. Told them that Im gonna provide support till the end of the month but no big features. Just spent a full shift in my main job and another full shift working on their product, trying to untagle their spaghetti.. Im totally lost and burned out. Meanwhile stupid manager is asking why "simple" stuff according to him is taking too long.
I should receive my last payment from agency this week, also asked them to send it to me earlier but no answer so far. At this point Im so burned out that I dont care anymore about the last payment, even if client complains that everything is broken and doesnt want to pay me. Project is beyond fucked and that SDK as well as their backend is a ticking time bomb. Im done.
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