Your boss asks one of your collegues to modify your code
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
How could bugs be introduced with code reviews, unit tests and automated testing at your disposal? :) I wouldn't be pleased and would want to know why this situation arose. Does your boss not trust you? Have you fallen out in the past? Have you given him a reason for his actions? Just don't be too hard on the co-worker who made the changes as he was put in a crap situation and was probably under pressure.
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
It happened once to me (only once!) I unwound all the changes and wrote an email with a detailed critique explaining the uselessness of the changes and the impact of the introduced bugs. It was safety-critical software and I explained that the changes, if allowed to go through, would have compromised safety. I also promised that if anything of the sort happened again I would withdraw all support for the whole codebase. No attempt to mess with my code has happened since.
Phil
The opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the author, especially if you find them impolite, inaccurate or inflammatory.
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
When I write code on company time, that code belongs to the company I work for, not to me. My boss can have others work on "my" code as he pleases. I introduce bugs sometimes, so I imagine I'd be rather forgiving of those introduced by others (though I might make fun of it in the Hall of Shame ;) ).
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
*shrugs* it's what usually happens I thought. Nearly everything that gets assigned to me is a change to something that was started by someone else, likewise other people are often tasked with something that was mostly written by me to start with. I think the idea is to spread knowledge around the team or something like that. But if it's something complex and critical hopefully they'd ask whoever created it in the first place if there was something they didn't understand, assuming they were still around.
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
I would take my boss out to the back field and put a bullet through his head. Seriously, I would be upset because my boss doesn't know anything about our line of work and I would be upset with my coworker for not consulting with me first.
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
It's not your code, ust code you've written.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchy -
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
They would find two bodies floating face down in a culvert somewhere. Next question?
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
depends what you mean by "behind your back". If the boss deliberately avoided telling you (and possibly instructed your coworker not to mention it) then communication in your office has failed and you need to find out why this sort of thing is necessary. perhaps your boss feels you would have sulked, or ranted, or whatever, and so tried to avoid this. perhaps your code is crap and he didn't want to upset you. perhaps you are working on something far more important and he didn't want to bother you with something as trivial as improving the efficiency of some part of the code. The fact that some bugs apparently have been introduced would be a cause for concern, of course. Maybe your code was insufficiently documented for your co-worker to follow - or maybe your co-worker is a gormless prat. whatever the facts, you obviously are not working as a team, and this can only lead to problems. So, without knowing more information, as a best guess next step I would suggest chatting to your co-worker, and seeing if you can work together to sort out the bugs.show your boss you can work together as a team, without being precious about 'your' code. then, when you're all working as a happy team, go f*(k up your co-worker's code behind his back, and see how he likes it :)
___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
-
LIQUID NITROGEN!
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
Henry Minute wrote:
LIQUID NITROGEN!
Someone once explained what this meant, but I have forgot :laugh: What does it mean?
See if you can crack this: fb29a481781fe9b3fb8de57cda45fbef
The unofficial awesome history of Code Project's Bob! "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
-
depends what you mean by "behind your back". If the boss deliberately avoided telling you (and possibly instructed your coworker not to mention it) then communication in your office has failed and you need to find out why this sort of thing is necessary. perhaps your boss feels you would have sulked, or ranted, or whatever, and so tried to avoid this. perhaps your code is crap and he didn't want to upset you. perhaps you are working on something far more important and he didn't want to bother you with something as trivial as improving the efficiency of some part of the code. The fact that some bugs apparently have been introduced would be a cause for concern, of course. Maybe your code was insufficiently documented for your co-worker to follow - or maybe your co-worker is a gormless prat. whatever the facts, you obviously are not working as a team, and this can only lead to problems. So, without knowing more information, as a best guess next step I would suggest chatting to your co-worker, and seeing if you can work together to sort out the bugs.show your boss you can work together as a team, without being precious about 'your' code. then, when you're all working as a happy team, go f*(k up your co-worker's code behind his back, and see how he likes it :)
___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
Thanks for your answer. You really sound like having a lot of experience in this domain... Developers are often having such a big ego, and i am no exception to this...
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
It's not your code. It belongs to the company. And so what, anyway? Maybe you were working on something that your boss considered more important, so he didn't want to pull you off it. Maybe a hundred things. If you start acting like you own everything you touch, you become a liability, not an asset. I myself would hand your code to other people to work on, just to break you of that.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
-
It's not your code. It belongs to the company. And so what, anyway? Maybe you were working on something that your boss considered more important, so he didn't want to pull you off it. Maybe a hundred things. If you start acting like you own everything you touch, you become a liability, not an asset. I myself would hand your code to other people to work on, just to break you of that.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Sure it is certainly the company's code. But simply stating it boldly like that doesn't help, especially if one has been working on this piece of code during several years. It is normal and I think, it is even good, that I have some attachment to that code, simply because of the fact that I would be in the position of giving an advice about how to go. At least, I could have been informed or asked how to implement the changes, it would certainly not have resulted in the code regression and performance hit. I definitely don't think that is is simply a need for some reward. It has also to do with respecting someone else's work, or wishing for better communication, or simply trying to be more efficient as a team.
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
Marc Greiner at home wrote:
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back
I would ask for a private meeting with my boss, and ask him an "open-ended" question in as "neutral" a tone as possible; something like: "I noticed this code was modified by XXXX, and I've found some problems that the modifications have introduced which, of course, I would like to help US get fixed asap; I'd appreciate it if you could fill me in on exactly why XXXX was called in, and the full context here, so WE can optimize getting the code fixed." best, Bill
"Many : not conversant with mathematical studies, imagine that because it [the Analytical Engine] is to give results in numerical notation, its processes must consequently be arithmetical, numerical, rather than algebraical and analytical. This is an error. The engine can arrange and combine numerical quantities as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and it fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly." Ada, Countess Lovelace, 1844
-
Marc Greiner at home wrote:
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
Why you need to react at all? It’s neither your decision nor your mistake. Live them to clean their mess or help them if they ask politely. Otherwise if you make a big thing out of it you will look like you’re too jealous to your code
There is only one Ashley Judd and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Brilliant! :-D
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station.... _________________________________________________________ My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
"Your code"... have never heard of such thing. That is why they have "Concurrent Versioning Systems" for developers who works on source code in parallel. Sometimes on the same source. Its nothing new. Maybe you're just outdated?
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." << please vote!! >>
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
Quite simple. If you documented your system, and the other developer broke it even with access to your documentation and comments, then help sort it out, and maybe recommend to your boss that either yourself works on the code or changes to the system get reviewed by you.
-
Sure it is certainly the company's code. But simply stating it boldly like that doesn't help, especially if one has been working on this piece of code during several years. It is normal and I think, it is even good, that I have some attachment to that code, simply because of the fact that I would be in the position of giving an advice about how to go. At least, I could have been informed or asked how to implement the changes, it would certainly not have resulted in the code regression and performance hit. I definitely don't think that is is simply a need for some reward. It has also to do with respecting someone else's work, or wishing for better communication, or simply trying to be more efficient as a team.
I don't think you're being unreasonable, but, at the same time, it's only work -- you only do it so that you can take care of much more important things, and and you'll do a lot of it before you can afford to retire. It was that the guy who worked on it introduced bugs that worried me. That means that there might not have been enough knowledge sharing, which can have disastrous repercussions if you're on holiday, you're laid up with flu, or you take another job. Maybe you should suggest sitting together with one or two of your colleagues, to walk them through the product, so they can fight any fires that spark up when you're not present. You never know, they might even come up with one or two ideas that hadn't occurred to you.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
-
How would you react after your boss has asked one of your coworkers to modify your code behind your back, for example to add a new function or optimize some algorithm, etc., and you discover that your coworker has broken some of your application's functionality or introduced some bugs?
Just had a client get upset with me because I haven't got a system running and improved from where it was "before" when it worked... It worked before some other developer changed database structures, fields, tables, broke queries and worse.. broke the very call to my application - which would have alerted us to database errors and the like. I have been giving it my all but now it seems to be all data related... solution thus far has been a "link table" provided to me by the same developer to "show me" where the fields and things have been moved to. Well... I coded to spec... and each record is dying for different reasons.. reasons that just don't make sense and have me second guessing code that ran flawless before (under the hood code I wrote, call, test regularly and trust...) Point is - version control and other comment shere are pretty much all spot on when they say its not your code... if you're an employee - chance are they are right. If they are a consultant; it depends on the contract/agreements etc. By default, a coder's code is a coder's code .. unless there is something in writing to the contrary which any consultant worth their salt wouldn't flinch at signing anymore than any employee does when getting a new software development job. Experience tells me that pissing matches always just make everyone miserable... so.. usually things need to be solved early on by management... if they see this.. usually one of the two at the P-Party gets the axe... the kind employers/clients will give you some options first to save face and leave gracefully or kiss-n-makeup with agreement to compromise and work together like professionals... etc etc... fail.. you will be terminated. LOL... that's how I see it... because I've seen these kinds of "tensions" play out over similiar issues in real cubical Dilbert land... honestly.. that's the MAIN reason I got tired of professionally consulting onsite for the big boys... cubical hell is dog-eat-dog.. which wouldn't even be that bad if the folks that were like that were actually genuses or something.. they're not.. so you end up seeing at times what appears to be "casual" dog fights and monkey-like politics... screaming for the banana hanging on the rope at anyone's expense.. That's why I'm an Entrepreneur (partially..at least that is one reason I really like it ... :) ) ..that said... ...another thought is comments in code; source control; etc. Polite ... POLITE comments that state fact, not emotion... fix..initials... what was wrong.. did I say FACTS ON