I usally use chrome for my daily work, have firefox also installed. A few weeks ago, I installed that one and I was also surprised: It starts up lightning fast, is rock solid. I am going to keep it up.

Thanks for that descriptive explanation. The code isn't too old, it's just some years. I already answered before, I do know what do to and how, it was just the initial shock that made me unable to move. It is not my task to refactor all that stuff and bring it to a nowadays acceptable architecture (thank god). You are certainly right, this code could be acceptable to some degree considering the time when it was made. In this case, it is just bad messy code without any architectural thoughts. I don't see anything that would make it acceptable due to coding guidelines, best practices or whatever. That doesn't help, certainly :). And it doesn't make a difference. Nevertheless, thanks for your answer. :)

Sure we do have source control. I always write code fearlessly . Quite good paradigma. Being moveless was only the initial shock :)

thomas.michaud wrote:

2. 15,000 lines for one control. Seems high, but I've seen worse....occassionally I have written worse.

Really? That made me curious. Why?

Oh, don't get me wrong. I don't have any issues to touch it. I was just blown away because I didn't expect anything like this. It simply took ist time to get to work again, after seeing that stuff. :) It is totally okay that things are not perfect, I also expect if there is mostly readable code and I don't mind if I see rubbish. I certainly made enough mistakes by myself. It was just the dimension of rubbish that made me moveless and scared. :)

That's another story. It's a WPF control, the 15.000 lines are in the code behind. (Did I say that these facts are even hard to write down?) It represents a task pane in Excel where most of the functionality is configurable. I guess it's a perfect sample for beginners that they can check how good they can work with legacy code when there is no architectural thinking before coding at all. I still cannot believe it. :)

I had a review of my code with the main developer of this code. Back then I wondered why he was that silent when we walked through my stuff. He didn't have anything to criticize, nor he had any advices for doing something better. That should have taken me aback :-) I always do it like you said. Tear it apart, creating an environment where I am comfortable with. Normally with a lot of explanations afterwards why I did what for what reason. I do not need to love everybody nor everybody needs to like me. I love good code. That's why I do it. :-)

hehe, yes. The worst things are always good to laugh about later on. But still I cannot believe it, when I look onto it. I had several times to think about how many classes and how many good documented lines of code it would be if it have been implemented in a good manner. Having this size, I would think, it is better to just throw it away and do it again. :-) you're right! I am sure, I'll tell it again. :-)

That the way it works! The KPIs don't allow to be calculated on years and they look dramatically better when the stuff is not payed directly but indirectly. Quality doesn't matter in the first run, only time and direct costs. Afterwards everyone can complain about the IT why maintenance does take that long and is so inefficient. Unbelievable.

The good thing is that it does not matter where you begin. Any part is just as good as another. That's true. But I really hate to develop like this. Even in prototypes I have a clean structure due to mess will always keep me from being fast.

you were forced to do support and maintenance, before you did any development. Seems to be completely overrated to be able to do the job properly nowadays :)

Exactly! It seems these guys only learn from the bad experience not from good advice.

guys, recently I had to do some work on a different product. There are two developers who normally work on the product, but one is ill, one on vacation. Okay, new functionality has to be implemented, I've never saw that code. And I wished I never had. I found one control that has 15.000 (fifteen thousand?) lines of code. The whole code is a mess. I didn't get it compiling for hours due to different 3rd party libs that are used throughout the product. I never understood who anyone could do something like this. There are a lot of good reasons for a good, solid architecture, but the most important is to know that maintenance will not kill you. I guess these guys are tougher than me. You know you live, when it hurts. And these guys seem to really feel the life going through their veins. I just stare onto that code and ask myself where to begin. As I said. I cannot move. I am scared. (Anyone remembers this "one broken window" story from the pragmatic programmers? This was war here) nice weekend guys.

in my experience, guys that studied math are pretty bad as programmers while guys who studied music or physics are pretty good. Nonetheless people who didn't study at all are often very well. To make a short story long: If you ask me, there is no background that makes the best programmers. It is the combination of passion, will, ambition. A cite from The passionate Programmer who I think is pretty close to reality: I did all of this without a formal education in computer programming. I was a musician before becoming a computer programmer. I went to college to study music. Since musicians don’t benefit much from college degrees, I chose to avoid any class that didn’t help me be a better musician. This means I left the university with more credits than required for any degree but still a few years worth of actual class time before I could graduate. In that way, I’m unqualified to be a professional software developer—at least if you look at the typical requirements for a software engineering position on the job market. But, though I’m unqualified to be a typical software developer, my background as a musician gave me one key insight that ultimately allowed me to skip the step of being a typical software developer (who wants to be typical, anyway?). Nobody becomes a musician because they want to get a job and lead a stable and comfortable life. The music industry is too cruel an environment for this to be a feasible plan. People who become professional musicians all want to be great. At least when starting out, greatness is binary in the music world. A musician wants to either be great (and famous for it!) or not do it at all.

"Each time I gave the exact answer, word for word." I love that. You are the most loved guy in that company? I also hate those meetings. We also have calls where all - i really mean all - people have to attend. From supporters over testers to development, business analysts, really everyone. Only to say some things and show boring powerpoints that just waste time. There's always an alternative to send around the same information in much less time. This is when I think, if they really make themselves clear how much money goes down the drain when all people sitting there just waiting for the end.

hi, like others already said, a system without abstraction is not maintainable. There are a lot of good examples out there, and most of them are working pretty well. Guess if you really want to know any, you would be pretty good in finding some. I have another question: What do you think would be the right approach? Functional? Procedural? Dynamic? Isn't it the task that has to accomplished that defines which is the best language and paradigm to use? I guess in your case you really should have an eye on some pretty well working (open source) projects. What about NHibernate? Eclipse? Mono? Is that all crap because of the architect in your team that wants to win the price of the worldwide-most-layers in a project? :) Holger

totally agree to this.

Mark, communication can always be better :-). I am from Germany, my chef is from slovakia. When I first have taken the hurdle to only talk English - that's not that hard, but the native language is always the first choice when i want to express myself clearly - he's has some ... blindness? for usability, abstraction and really managing people. I always try to do my very best - so one hand he can see that I am reliable and able to solve the weirdest things, on the other hand because of the trust I earn for my work - I am able to criticize at least even him. That works pretty well - even if I sometimes wish I would work as a freelancer. :-) Holger

Pete, just because I am curios. I do not have a degree in computer science also. I do not want to offend anyone, but my experience is, that the degree does not help much in programming. Or said in a different way, a degree in computer science helps for may be having a knowlegde about how to solve complex problems (separate into smaller ones, etc), may be a stronger knowlegde in math, but not necessarily in professional programming. If one does not start to program by himself, the study will not make a programmer (or developer? :-) ) out of him. Do you have the same experience? Holger

Marc, I wouldn't mind if somebody has changed my code without notifying me. I don't see any need for my boss (or my collegues) to notify me if changes/ fixes or whatever in some certain areas as necessary for whatever reason, as I do not usally communicate each and every bug fix and improvement of code unless the changes have a certain size and possibly effect the work of the others. Just relax. Only the fact that somebody changes your code doesn't mean anything for you. It's teamwork, isn't it, and the code is not read only to any of the others. Most often it is a good idea to get in the position of the others and try to understand what they thought. What changes were it? In which time? Have you been busy with "more important" things? Then you don't get in the state that you think they doing "something behind your back", simply because you may know what was intended. Holger

Don't know if this is really the case. For about half a year I learned Java/ Eclipse/ Hibernate/ etc. All the tools that are integrated in Microsoft environment are there open source and must be understood. It is no way better. But agreed: There are plenty of things that could be done better. The worst thing is, that MS only does things when they're well known. It could be more innovative :-) Cheers Hiro