Ask HN: What's the hardest part of maintaining a legacy codebase?
5 comments
I feel like this applies to all code bases not just legacy ones!
It's setting developers up to default-fail and making them accountable if they do, and the crazy thing is companies insist on this when a solid test suite and occasional cleanup drastically reduces the possibility of failing... setting developers up to default-win.
It's setting developers up to default-fail and making them accountable if they do, and the crazy thing is companies insist on this when a solid test suite and occasional cleanup drastically reduces the possibility of failing... setting developers up to default-win.
Legacy expectations and requirements. It's not uncommon to see that there is a better way to do something, but be unable to do it because the customer assumes and/or expects the current way of doing things. They might even be on board with the new way, but trying to include that in any sort of project budget is a non- starter.
Can't transfer your skills to the shiny new thing.
fighting the urge to rewrite everything and propagating the legacy code cycle.
The tiniest feature becomes a chess game with unpredictable interactions, not enough tests, etc.