alt Hacker NewsThe worst I have experienced: A 30,000-line .cs file. A giant monolithic program tangled together by Singleton abuse, 6-deep nested if/else blocks, and the list goes on. There are too many to count. And this is a sight I see every single day. This is the exact landscape I encounter at many companies when I go in for maintenance work. Encapsulation completely shattered as a direct reflection of the subcontracting power hierarchy, among other things...
Code that completely disregards collaboration, utilizing outdated algorithms in the name of "optimization" and making it utterly unmaintainable for anyone else.
We learn about ADTs, Result-first approaches, Composition Roots, and code hygiene, yet at some point, code that simply "works" becomes what ships to production.
Communities advocate for building "good software," but the reality in the field is that most of it is "code written just to clock out for the day." I hear "it works, so don't touch it" in dozens of different variations.
The quality of an open-source project contrasts sharply with that of delivered enterprise software. People settle for the "if it works, it's fine" mindset because in open source, the code itself represents personal reputation, whereas in contract deliveries, meeting the deadline is ultimately the core objective...
It feels like the world is always polarized.
Replies
> 6-deep nested if/else blocks
We found a 4000 Loc single-file single-function c program running a functional safety domain. With nesting so deep that you need to change the font-size or get a wider monitor. We're not allowed to touch or replace it because it's pre-certified.
I can believe that... We've had logging macros break because line numbers no longer fit in an u16
I would love a TV show like "Hell's kitchen" except it's code bases and development processes.
Last place I worked they had an ASP.Net MVC controller with basically the entire product in it. The .cs file was nearly 2 megs.
I was mainly .NET dev in the first 8 years of my career and it's a pretty common thing among .NET shops/corporates. Most .NET devs I worked with seemed to be on average older guys who are stuck in .NET Framework 3.x days. I joined a place that used .NET 5 and one guy was still writing hash code and equal methods for every single data class he made(by hand too). When I asked him why, he said that he didn't know he doesn't have to do that anymore. Those people are mostly alright/mediocre devs who just refuse to keep up with the times, clock in, clock out, don't think too much, just write some more code to make it work. If someone a decade ago started some convoluted architectural pattern, they'll just continue doing it, no thought given as to why or what for, whether things can be done better. While I have different, but equally annoying issues with Node/Js world I work in now, I don't miss those .NET days.