Often I refer to the Pidgin code base as scary. This is because it is very old, has implementations for things that there are libraries for now, is...
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I guess the thing for me is that it's wasting time that could be better spent on learning or working on something new. One thing that frustrates us the most is "carelessness", the idea that we think people simply don't care, they throw anything together to make it work at 5pm on a Friday afternoon, rather than doing the job properly all day Monday.
I'm one of those people who would rather spend a week doing a job properly than throw some garbage together in an hour and walk away. I guess people like me see others who rush things as "bodgers" who can't be bothered to "measure twice and cut once".
Maybe it's disingenuous to consider people are careless but I think that's the root of the frustration. Which then leads back to your piece, "Does it really matter? Just fix it and move on with your life.".
I understand where you're coming from as I'm the same way, but even when I do the current "gold standard" in a year that could completely change. I even had an example of that this week. reviews.imfreedom.org/r/2738/#comm...
The code base is so old, in fact, that those teenagers are in their 40s now! I think about that from time to time. It's pretty wild. :)
To be fair, I'm in my 40's now too :P
I take issue with this prejudicial remark, and a lot of the really judgmental sentiments contained within this article. I’ve been a professional software engineer for 25 years, starting when I was 16.
You make several good points in here regarding code review and refactoring, but the judgmental remarks really take away from what otherwise could have been a very constructive article about the challenges old code presents.
The code that was written by inexperienced developers speaks for itself, it is not prejudice...
I’m not talking about the code, I’m talking about your words.
Okay, what specifically is wrong with the words?
I did highlight that in my initial comment. Your initial paragraph carries with it an awful lot of problematic implications, and then you went on to say that you didn’t want to talk about it.
I don’t think that those remarks are fair or inclusive of younger developers, less experienced developers, or people who do open source work but have a non-programming day job.
No implication, clearly stated, not professional developers. And then it's immediately followed with
I go on later to expand on this topic...
And I added more later with:
I'm sorry I couldn't answer address everything in the opening paragraphs, I disagree with your opinion that it had problematic implications as I didn't imply anything and was very inclusive in the rest of the post.
What's more interesting to me is that the underlying meaning I was trying to get across is that every developer, from the imaginary "10x" to the "non professional ones" are doing their best and people shouldn't be cutting them down regardless.
I totally agree with you here Gary. Mike is basically just looking for things to get offended by.
This is an example of that you can always find something that offends you if you really take your time to look for it.