Reply to: Working Dilemma

[Zippy]

So when I ask the architect tomorrow, quietly, if I can get another day to work through the problems his team have created I should really ask him "Has this code been tested, where are the tests" very loudly?

Its worth asking the question about the tests but we all know there won't be any. Maybe they'll start thinking about it?

Ask for extra time, explain that you are uncertain how the front end will treat errors and what will happen if they are not. I wouldn't be loud but I wouldn't be quiet about it either. I appreciate you are in a difficult position with this but you just have to keep pushing back in a non-aggressive way.

And don't get upset about it (like I do)

[minestrone]

Bollox. The point of asking the questions is cover your arse. We already know the answer and we also know you don't get taught the really useful stuff in software engineering lectures.

So when I ask the architect tomorrow, quietly, if I can get another day to work through the problems his team have created I should really ask him "Has this code been tested, where are the tests" very loudly?

[Zippy]

And then we step outside the software engineering lecture into the Big Wide World...

Bollox. The point of asking the questions is cover your arse. We already know the answer and we also know you don't get taught the really useful stuff in software engineering lectures.

[minestrone]

They do not have testing department and I actually have not met a tester yet and although I built a front end testing mini framework for them they never understood it.

It's more telling the depatment that they cannot code rather than fixing it for them that is the problem.

I have always went through my contract career coding what they have asked me to write. If they ask me to write..

System.out.println( "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" ) ;
System.out.println( "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" ) ;
System.out.println( "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" ) ;
System.out.println( "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy" ) ;


..I will do it. It's just this time I am coding for a presentation to a client and I have to piss of a whole team of people for it to work.

[NotAllThere]

You could try telling the PM that crap code = expensive code. But I doubt he'll listen, never mind understand. Project mindset - get it working for day 1. Day 2 can **** itself.

Sometime I'm glad I work in a validated environment so that a legitimate concern about code quality tends to be taken seriously. Especially as my stuff takes longer to code than the other guys' - but tends to work and not break.

I really really HATE bad coding

[MPwannadecentincome]

That is my worry, the code will fall over just by looking at the screen, i'm worried about telling the architect the code is rotten which implies that all the people that are coding for him can't code and then the PM asking the architect why he was not checking the code they were writing.

All the contractors have been heading for lunch every day wondering who was going to be first to tell them this big greenfield site was a pile of steaming pish, looks like I get the short straw.

I've not heard of architect's checking code - they are too busy drawing diagrams to be looking at code!

Most places I've worked no-one checks code - I've had to appoint the duty to the team on a risk basis on an informal basis with existing teams or on a formal basis with newly formed teams.

BTW if the code is that crappy can't you predict what will fall over / what the bugs are, execute the code and demonstrate the tulipe in action?

[MPwannadecentincome]

Hire Mich to test it!

once a professional tester breaks it then surely you are in the clear - you get paid to fix it!

[d000hg]

Has it been properly tested? How has it been tested? How long is the defect list? Do you have adequate documentation of all the interfaces etc.?

And then we step outside the software engineering lecture into the Big Wide World...

[thunderlizard]

Well that's easy enough. Make it look like an accident.*



*or a burglary gone wrong. But more likely an accident.

[minestrone]

Being able to do this without looking like a smug git is what separates the contracting sheep from the goats.

That is my worry, the code will fall over just by looking at the screen, i'm worried about telling the architect the code is rotten which implies that all the people that are coding for him can't code and then the PM asking the architect why he was not checking the code they were writing.

All the contractors have been heading for lunch every day wondering who was going to be first to tell them this big greenfield site was a pile of steaming pish, looks like I get the short straw.

[thunderlizard]

If you know it'll fall over, write a few test cases that demonstrate it falling over, and then propose your rework plan.

Being able to do this without looking like a smug git is what separates the contracting sheep from the goats.

[minestrone]

The stuff I have to 'reuse' is a bunch of front end pages and action classes hanging off of that. I would have tried to make it into a neat package but the code has already been 'reused' a few times so I doubt there is a point in making it into a package.

They link into a back end system that validates everything at the data level but the front end does hardly any validation, if the back end tells the front end to GTF the front end just drops a tulipe to the screen. I told them I would have it finished today but I think there is another day of refactoring.

If I tell them that it needs reworked then a few people ( original code developer and the other people who have copied it ) will be told they have to change it as they are crap so I will be pretty unpopular.

Code is rework for a pretty major retail site as well. Myself and the other contractors have been bitching about it for weeks, not one Bob in the place as well. Home grown crap.

[Platypus]

Can you wrapper the code so that your code protects the crap code from anything which will make it fall over?

[BrilloPad]

Great andyw option

[Badger]

I would get it working but would place as many comments in the code as possible to reference what I'd had to change and why.