Re:Ask YC: Programmers fatigue and their output
by abhishekdesai on Saturday January 24, 2009 @09:24AM
(#448111)
you guessed it right, this is India. developers have <5 years of exp and they are without formal training. however as you said they are clever and have not done bad coding. i.e. they have not done messy code which can not be understood by other developers or not according to the standard.
infact that is where cakephp helped us a lot. it does not allow you to take too much room while developing so you have to try hard to do bad coding in there.
Your suggestion is well taken but I am not sure whether there is a need to rewrite the code.
Re:Ask YC: Programmers fatigue and their output
by abdulhaq on Saturday January 24, 2009 @09:28AM
(#448114)
OK, fair enough. Have you asked them what they think is the best thing to do?
Re:Ask YC: Programmers fatigue and their output
by abhishekdesai on Saturday January 24, 2009 @10:18AM
(#448155)
Well not in this typical sense but yes I have always given them freedom to complete tasks on their own.
I recommend you get in a senior developer with experience of TDD and large systems. Have a fresh start and boost morale by showing how a new approach can help clean up the code. It will need your support to give them the time to add the tests, refactor and clean up the code. Progress will appear to stop for a while, but it is well worth it. You will end up with a much better product.