Dealing with Horrible Legacy Code

I know, I know.. it has indeed been a while.  What can I say, I've been busy with work.  Even though the US is deep in a recession so bad that Microsoft and IBM are executing mass layoffs (Microsoft's ever), there are those of us; especially on the Unix side of things (I gather Linux users as well) who are swamped with new projects.  

As many readers would know, I have for the past year and a half been offering my software engineering services to an international publishing firm based out of New York with branches in Pennsylvania and Japan.  Yesterday I was in Manhattan for a meeting of introductions to the individuals with whom I would be coordinating on not one, nor two nor even three projects, but four new magazine entities.   This now brings my overall responsibility in terms of publications I  handle to a clean half dozen.  

I'm glad I'm not in the Microsoft world (for multiple reasons not to mention primarily because I refuse to work with junk and this includes any MS OS), but for the reason that with all of these layoffs, a mass amount will be MCSE's and VB/.NET programmers, architects and engineers.  This does however segue into my first point (trust me, there is a relation).  

In my most recent project, a sister publication of it actually needed some work done to their rss feeds.  Apparently this was first and foremost to fix a broken rss subscription page (where one could select which 'feeds' to follow).  This problem had been present for over a year from what I've told, and it was so bad that the page itself was throwing a PHP debug page when accessed.  This is wrong on many levels, most immediately that the debug mode was still on in the server configuration (the other errors being that they were using PHP, and allowed something to go on for over a year, broken.)  

Not wanted to reinvent the wheel as well as having a sense of right and wrong I contacted the original developers of the software and let them know that since they were the only individuals with write access to the entire group of applications involved (not to mention this was custom built by them), that it was their fault 100%, and their responsibility to fix it, and quickly at that.  As a side note, I had been informed by my client that they had made repeated requests to said developers about this problem for over the past year and were informed that it would take 'a lot of time', and that they would be billed accordingly.  Long story short, I got in the developers faces about professionalism, the fact that had they any procedures in place for regression testing when changes were made and a proper set of document and qa tests, this problem would have been squashed the moment it was introduced.  Three hours after sending my well crafted letter, I received an email back from said development house that the problem was rectified, all is working and that there was no charge.  No charge indeed, I wouldn't accept one if they tried as it was entirely on them.  

This brings me on to point number two as I could rant about the prior issue if left to my own devices.  My continued disdain for the overwhelming use of PHP.  I know it was a great idea that filled a niche when it was created, but it truly has grown to be something rather heinous: the sucessor to visual basic.  I say this because as with VB, the purpose was to make creating software in said language possible, even 'easy' for the 'non-programmer'.  This is a simple point to remember so I won't waste additional time stating it.  Non-programmers shouldn't be programming, period.  You either are a programmer, or you aren't.  If you aren't, you have no business behind the keyboard writing code for anything that ever goes into use in a company by anyone, including yourself.  Engineering isn't a child's game and it requires discipline and continual study and exercising of one's skills.  We won't pretend to do your job, you don't pretend to do ours as you are only making things worse. 

This came about because while looking at the code to find the original rss problem (which was fixed without having to write any code in that monstrosity),  I became disgusted at how hackish the whole application was.  It was guilty of all of the following and more:

- ambiguous variable names

- includes of code snippets where objects should have been 

- nested structures 4+ levels deep

- very few if any comments in the code

- very little meaning in those few comments that actually pass as informative. 

- non-sensical file hierarchy for modules, includes, etc.

- hardcoding of parameters in both equality tests and branch based if statements. 

& much, much more.

It is enough to make one partake in an involuntary protein spill reflexively.  The good news of it all is that this old code base (I use the term code VERY loosely) will be redesigned and re-implemented by me and I can guarantee (because I DO guarantee my work) that it will be faster, cleaner, easier-to-use, easier-to-upgrade (including maintenance) than the existing system and will be constructed in a considerably shorter period of time. 

It is times like these where I'm glad that these other places exist.  It is hard to not look good when everyone else is so hideously bad.  I just feel bad for the poor companies and individuals who utilise these companies' services. 

recent job, nasty code built hackish bit by bit, quickly

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php (*the open source equivalent of Visual Basic*)

Some Coders that Stand Out in My Mind

   No, no, no..  Unlike in the movie “Antitrust", I never was fortunate(?) enough to work in an environment like “The Egg”.  I’ve never worked for a huge computer company or internet startup during their heyday such as Google, Netscape (back in the day) or Apple though after reading of some of the stories of those of have, I feel like it must’ve been a blast (albeit tiring).  I can however say that I’ve met a multitude of interesting people over the years and would like to mention just a few of them here, with the hope of eventually getting in contact with one or more of them in the future.

    I will try to keep everyone in a quasi-chronological order for the sake of clarity when discussing the environment in which I interacted with said individuals.

    Joseph ‘Joey’ Springer III:    Joey was my neighbour as a child who happened to live right around the corner.  We both had obsessions with computers from the earliest days of our youth.  His father was Joseph Springer, Jr., an engineer at RCA and ultimate provider of an early teletype machine along with a seemingly endless supply of punch cards with which we would goof around for countless hours.  While we never coded together, he was a close friend whose intelligence shone through at all times, not to mention he was a keen player of ‘Dark Castle’ on his sister Kathy’s Macintosh which she was required to have since she was attending Drexel University at the time.  I haven’t see Joey since the late 1980’s but know that he’s out there somewhere.  Last I heard he was achieving his degree in Mathematics somewhere in New Jersey, USA.

    Walter ‘Walt’ Thesing & Michael ‘Mike’ Simons (a.k.a. Jesus):  Back in the 10th grade at the high school I attended after my stint at an Engineering and Science magnet school in Philadelphia, I took a class in Pascal.  I’d been programming for many years at this point, but never took any formal classes on the topic.   I’d known BASIC for quite some time but never had any experience in in other languages at any kind of serious level.   Well, it was in this class that I met Walt.  He was quite adept at coding the older Apple ][‘s our school utilised and spent much of his free time coding and playing his version of Tetris.  We ended up befriending one another in class along with my coding partner (at the time) Michael ‘Mike’ Simons (a.k.a. Jesus) and through the process learned that we shared a certain fondness for coding whilst listening to the B52’s.  It was through coding whilst listening to the aforementioned musical ensemble that the idea for this post as well as the memory of Walt popped into my head.  I don’t know if Walt went into computers professional, or another science/mathematics field, but it woud be a sad loss for those fields if this were how it played out.  Mike Simons went on to work with the Slackware Linux distribution and I last saw him at Linux World Expo, New York in 2001.  I’d like to hear from either of them if they’re out there.

    Daniel ‘Dan’ Ervine:  During my seven year stint at Alliance Remanufacturing in Philadelphia, PA, USA at the turn of the past millennium I worked with a fledgling Network Engineer fresh out of a Marist College (a.k.a. Mattress College) named Dan.   

    When Dan and I first started working together he was still very much a Microsoft tool, but after exposing him to the real world of Unix and Unix knock offs like the various Linux distributions out there, I deemed him cured of his previous MS affliction.  We only got the opportunity to work with one another for a couple of years due to a restructuring which saw him lose his position right around the same time as his birthday and wedding.  

    We’d worked together on several projects (primarily me assisting in his Networking world) since it was something I wanted to at least learn and partake in once since I never work in the administrative capacity these days.  We grew to become friends and had the joy of travelling several times on business together (including two Linux World Expos in New York) and CAMM in Connecticut. 

    He’d changed dramatically over the years, all for the better and while it has only been a few years since I’ve been able to see and/or talk with him, I’d like to as I’m curious as to what he and his wife are up to, and where he is in his career, though I’m sure it’s a good place.

    So as I said earlier, there are many individuals with whom I’ve had interactions in the computing field which I’d like to speak to again given the opportunity.  I have many others whom I’d like to make mention but being that it is 00:45 in the morning as I type this  whilst watching “Ghost in the Shell : Standalone Complex” on the tele, I need to end it here.  I will continue this list in a later thread when time avails itself.