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A comment on Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have ever seen. How to fix it?.

Re:Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have eve... by intrasight on Saturday September 17, 2022 @10:19PM (#32883758)
People suggest rewriting little-by-little. Does that really work in practice? And why would one do it? Why not let that business rot-in-place so to speak, while building a new business on a new platform to "compete" with it?

I worked for a company early in my career that sold a $1500 piece of software and had revenue of $15 million. When I was there, the head could was 70. Ten years later the head count is two - one engineer and one person to take the orders. And revenue was still a couple million. A classic "rot-in-place" situation.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have eve... by carso on Sunday September 18, 2022 @01:57AM (#32884805)
Rewriting little by little just means: each time you make a change, leave the source base at least a little better than you found it. Leave a few comments about the thing you reverse engineered. Delete a little dead code. Eventually you get the confidence to move from the lowest hanging fruit to deeper refactoring. You do it because that approach may be the best you can do with a rotten source base within your time and resource constraints,
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have eve... by intrasight on Sunday September 18, 2022 @03:34PM (#32890708)
Honestly, that sounds like making bad code even worse.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have eve... by majikandy on Sunday September 18, 2022 @06:42PM (#32892177)
Apart from the fact they said making the code better each time?
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Re:Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have eve... by intrasight on Sunday September 18, 2022 @11:18PM (#32893913)
LOL. Did you read the OP? Code is in PHP.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Inherited the worst code and tech team I have eve... by majikandy on Sunday September 18, 2022 @06:41PM (#32892166)
Yes it works. You eventually get to a place that is “not too bad”, whilst still allowing new features to be developed and the business moving forward.
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