Software Reality

The Worst of Humanity, The Best of Humanity

There are doubtlessly better, more contrasting examples out there, but these two stories on Slashdot, right next to each other, brought home how two big organisations, both of which purport to be there for the good of the people, can create such markedly opposing reactions in my stomach. While one is striving to explore the universe and expand on what it means to be human, the other is... well... just doing what it does.

Programmer Archaeology - The perils of joining a mature project

The majority of software projects are ongoing efforts - never ending cut-and-release marathons. New screens and functions are released on (or around) specific agreed dates, but the project itself keeps on going. So it’s far more common for developers to join a project mid-flow, with its own dusty corners that no-one dares to disturb, its homegrown O-R mapping frameworks, crusted together with the foibles and wrinkles of a dozen long-since-departed self-styled code gurus.

By contrast, starting a brand new project from scratch is a rare joy: the opportunity to set the standards, consider the architecture, evaluate the available technologies given the business requirements; and to produce clean, maintainable code that’s easily unit-tested.

Ah, that last one. There’s nothing quite like the pain of joining a “mature” project and discovering that unit tests were never even a glimmer in the eyes of the project’s founding coders; the forefathers who laid the treacle-like foundations for their successors to follow.

Like a Spanish explorer in a South American jungle, you’re unlikely to find a lost city of gold; instead, prepare to discover the overgrown remnants of one long-lost programmer’s vain attempt to add unit tests - a strained nod toward provable code quality, quickly abandoned when the poor programmer was beaten back by the tangle of dependencies, the onslaught of complex constructors and static initializer blocks like Aztec ghosts sending the programmer scrambling to the far end of the jungle.