Re:Ask HN: How do you estimate the code quality of a company...
by arp242 on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @01:56AM
(#27511792)
I ask for the best and worst code, specifically. And if they say no ask them to describe the code: why is it good? Why is it bad?
Once they showed me the "best" code and it was a mess. Okay, that's not a show-stopper as there could be perfectly valid reasons for that. Then they showed me the "worst" code and it was actually a bit better, but the guy said "yeah, it's not good; we're missing public/private on a lot of classes".
I had trouble not laughing.
The code itself isn't all that important. It's what they say about it. Bad code? That's okay, I worked with a lot of bad code. But if you don't realize you have bad code and think that is the biggest issue ... yeah....
Once they showed me the "best" code and it was a mess. Okay, that's not a show-stopper as there could be perfectly valid reasons for that. Then they showed me the "worst" code and it was actually a bit better, but the guy said "yeah, it's not good; we're missing public/private on a lot of classes".
I had trouble not laughing.
The code itself isn't all that important. It's what they say about it. Bad code? That's okay, I worked with a lot of bad code. But if you don't realize you have bad code and think that is the biggest issue ... yeah....