Questions tagged [maintenance]

The activities that occur after deployment of a software system. This includes making modifications to released systems, training, operating, and transitioning to support organizations.

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How to work with a messy codebase and client [duplicate]

A client came to me with some features he wanted implementing. Easy enough to do what he asked. He paid me, I agreed to start on the start date and finish in 3 weeks. The code base is a disaster. It ...
James Jeffery's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
581 views

Code maintenance: Is it better to develop in English or my mother tongue? [duplicate]

Suppose I develop an application for a given company of my own country. Is is better to code in English or with the language of my country ? I mean, if it is better to comment in French and name the ...
user avatar
0 votes
3 answers
4k views

Who fixes bugs in a team? [duplicate]

In an agile software development team, who would be the one to fix the bugs introduced in an update? The developer who writes the feature? Someone else specialized specifically in debugging with a ...
Esqarrouth's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
2k views

How are financial organizations planning for the degradation of old programming languages such as COBOL? [closed]

I know that some financial organizations still use "dead" languages such as COBOL. I'm wondering what will happen in the future, when almost no one will program in those languages, and the maintenance ...
Maria Ines Parnisari's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

Toggling "maintenance mode" in Java EE app

I've been toying with the idea of feature toggles for various configuration/access purposes, but have been a little unsure of myself when it comes to toggling something like a downtime or maintenance ...
whitlaaa's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
169 views

Code generation vs data driven

While writing a data mapping function (import from csv (using TextFieldParser) to table), I used the sql table structure to generate the boilerplate C# code that creates the datatable and populates it ...
jmoreno's user avatar
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0 votes
2 answers
199 views

How can I figure out if another project is mostly maintenance and bugs? [closed]

I started working in a relatively big company that unfortunately has its share of quite a lot of legacy code and I ended up spending an extra ordinary amount of time in maintainance and bug fixes. ...
user10326's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
159 views

How to take over sizable codebase, without having access those who implemented? [duplicate]

I've started a job as mobile lead in a 100employee company. Their Mobile products (iOS and Android) has been developed by external teams, and now they have decided to assemble internal teams, so I'm ...
Mabedan's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
730 views

What is software maintenance?

I'm a hobbyist programmer, so no professional experience. People here often talk about doing maintenance of software at work. The author of this question talks about doing 90% maintenance and 10% ...
Aviv Cohn's user avatar
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21 votes
4 answers
2k views

Helping someone who is not and never will be a professional programmer write code that is more legible and usable to use and interpret [closed]

I am Elvis, trying very hard to learn to be Einstein. I work for Mort. What the hell is this crazy idiot talking about!?!? (You only need to read the first few paragraphs) If you don't feel like ...
durron597's user avatar
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23 votes
4 answers
12k views

How to deal with team members writing bad code [duplicate]

Our team consits of junior and senior developers. Problem I am facing is with the code written by seniors. They are not following MINIMUM coding standards. I am also still learning but I wouldn't ...
Sunny's user avatar
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1 vote
4 answers
376 views

Is there a good way to communicate the intent that a class only contains referentially transparent methods?

My workplace mostly uses C# for writing code. I'm trying to figure out a good way to indicate that a class with referentially transparent methods is intended to be referentially transparent (i.e., ...
jeff charles's user avatar
0 votes
3 answers
474 views

New and old technologies coexist in legacy system [closed]

New technologies can accomplish existing tasks in more efficient and powerful way. But sometimes old technologies cannot be discarded unfortunately, so more numbers of technologies in one system make ...
卢声远 Shengyuan Lu's user avatar
0 votes
3 answers
2k views

How can I explain this is an anti-pattern? [closed]

I recently started at a new job. The existing system works OK but is poorly designed and hard to maintain, and they are planning to rebuild it in MVC and I fear it will be much worse. (Not because ...
indeed005's user avatar
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5 votes
4 answers
1k views

How do I handle merging code that hasn't been merged in ~3 years in an agile manner? [closed]

Our team has recently adopted agile practices and most of the team is new to agile. In our product, we use some code developed by another team and only they maintain that code. For the last 4-5 years,...
Anup Shah's user avatar
  • 179
19 votes
4 answers
3k views

How to convince/prove my manager that a rewriting is needed rather than a refactoring [duplicate]

My manager wants me to refactor a gigantic amount of terribly-coupled, macroed, full of private namespace methods, hierarchy-perverted (even 10+ levels of inheritance) code which hasn't been (indeed) ...
Marco A.'s user avatar
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2 votes
6 answers
5k views

What is the norm for introducing new hires to a code base? [duplicate]

After college I worked at one company for 6 months, and I've just now joined another one, bringing the grand total in my career so far to two. So the first company had a few hundred thousand lines of ...
temporary_user_name's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
398 views

Is input validation necessary?

This is a very naive question about input validation in general. I'm a MATLAB user (1.5 years old) and I learned about input validation techniques such as "parse" and "validatestring". In fact, ...
Kouichi C. Nakamura's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
513 views

Managing false positives in TDD or BDD

I'm relatively new to TDD and have been thinking a lot about how to manage the perpetually growing pool of tests that comes with it. One of my biggest concerns is about false positives. In my ...
MetaFight's user avatar
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247 votes
6 answers
79k views

Why do dynamic languages make it more difficult to maintain large codebases? [duplicate]

Large codebases are more difficult to maintain when they are written in dynamic languages. At least that's what Yevgeniy Brikman, lead developer bringing the Play Framework to LinkedIn says in a video ...
Jus12's user avatar
  • 2,501
2 votes
4 answers
772 views

Considerations before rewriting a software component from scratch? [duplicate]

A piece of software is a patchwork of old and undocumented efforts. There are no comments, no documentation, and the code is hairy -- it involves Unix shell scripts that check for dummy files and then ...
Torben Gundtofte-Bruun's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
158 views

Managing codebase for basic and pro edition of a project

I have a project which will have basic and professional edition. The professional edition will have all the features of the basic edition. I am using git to manage the project's codebase. I consider ...
haitaka's user avatar
  • 141
0 votes
1 answer
181 views

Implementing new required feature after software release

Fake Scenario There is a software that was released 1 year ago. The software is to map and register all kind of animals on our planet. When the software was released, the client only needed to know ...
Tiago B's user avatar
  • 167
8 votes
3 answers
1k views

Disillusioned with agile; how do you prepare for life after release 1.1? [closed]

My company is going full steam with the agile process, with multiple agile projects in work. The first agile team, the proof of concept, carried the product through release and the first post ...
Scott S's user avatar
  • 275
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Maintaining code-style conventions for large projects [closed]

For a while I've been maintaining an ad-hoc script to check code style against our project's guidelines. I'm aware of AStyle/Uncrustify and have used them, but they are best for once-off code-style ...
ideasman42's user avatar
75 votes
7 answers
19k views

Writing Tests for Existing Code

Suppose one had a relatively large program (say 900k SLOC in C#), all commented/documented thoroughly, well organized and working well. The entire code base was written by a single senior developer ...
Paul's user avatar
  • 1,025
18 votes
6 answers
4k views

Does dealing with legacy code help one evolve as a programmer? [closed]

I'm a Java developer with a bit more than a year of experience which places me somewhere above a junior, but not among mid-level developers yet. Recently I was offered a long-term project which is ...
svz's user avatar
  • 307
-1 votes
2 answers
366 views

What's a good way to manage long piece of code in files? [duplicate]

I am a web developer and at the moment am finding it hard to cope with long un-documented code written by previous developers in an organisation I work for. With the deadline gun always pointed at my ...
Anon's user avatar
  • 101
1 vote
1 answer
958 views

Strategies for removing register_globals from a file

I have a file (or rather, a list of about 100 files) in my website's repository that is still requiring the use of register_globals and other nastiness (like custom error reporting, etc) because the ...
Jonathan Rich's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
118 views

data maintenance/migrations in image based sytems

Web applications usually have a database. The code and the database work hand in hand together. Therefore Frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Django create migration files Sure there are also servers ...
User's user avatar
  • 795
52 votes
5 answers
4k views

Does dedicated maintenance work hamper a programmer's career? [closed]

The majority of my work over the last three years has largely been around maintaining legacy systems that needed patching up or the occasional revamp before being sold again. I understand the ...
Gyurme's user avatar
  • 450
7 votes
5 answers
3k views

How can I keep a production Python environment secure?

Most of my work is creating websites in Django (a Python web framework) and deploying them to my own or clients' servers. I work from a virtualenv to separate site from system packages and have ...
Oli's user avatar
  • 297
0 votes
0 answers
100 views

How to quickly understand a huge piece of code [duplicate]

(This is a general question but I think is important.) How do you quickly understand a huge piece of code, say, a project with tens of thousands of lines of code (written by other people)? Are there ...
Cyker's user avatar
  • 109
11 votes
2 answers
4k views

Updating copyright headers each new year just because Jan 1st has passed? [duplicate]

I've seen some projects that - with each new year - start to change all files in their source-tree to update the copyright year. Isn't this just pushing hot air on a level of magnitude? AFAIK: ...
hakre's user avatar
  • 1,165
10 votes
6 answers
7k views

Working in a company that does not comment their code at all? [duplicate]

I work for a small software development house (10~ developers, a few product managers and a few support staff) that sells various products and services to organisations internationally through ...
zuallauz's user avatar
  • 246
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

Introducing Fowler's Table Data Gateway to refactor poorly designed systems

I am developing an application, which currently has about 150,000 lines of code. The previous developer didn't really use any discipline when writing code. Application is in production but is ...
w0051977's user avatar
  • 7,003
3 votes
2 answers
368 views

How to handle product rebranding in code in a short time frame [closed]

We've all been there - a product feature is called "gold", and then a week before launch they decide it is to be called "platinum". Luckily, you had some nous about you so the UI code is easy to ...
Robbie Dee's user avatar
  • 9,717
2 votes
2 answers
312 views

Starting a recurring project from scratch [duplicate]

We have a project that keeps recurring. The client expects us to run a website twice a year and this is happened for the last year and a half. I took the last working copy and based our latest website ...
user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
116 views

Proper name for a project supports 2 different release

Is there a technical name for a software project where the current and prior stable releases are both maintained?
JeffH's user avatar
  • 169
0 votes
2 answers
817 views

Strategy for reading and understanding Node.js code [duplicate]

Concretely I am looking at this 2000 line file of what I will pretty arbitrarily call "mediocre" code. It's not well-commented variable names and function names seem consistently intelligent ...
djechlin's user avatar
  • 2,212
1 vote
1 answer
122 views

Maintenance code needs improvements [duplicate]

I am currently maintaining/enhancing a project a bit old speaking of the 1990's. Atleast 15 developers would have worked over it. Going through the code for understanding is bit difficult. No ...
Shirish11's user avatar
  • 1,469
76 votes
9 answers
5k views

How should you deal with a popular project that you no longer want to maintain?

I am the maintainer of a project which has a large non-technical userbase. I've been maintaining it for about 4 years now and adding new features as they've been requested. I'd like to move on to ...
Mendhak's user avatar
  • 919
0 votes
1 answer
179 views

Functional document from code

I am a Sr java Developer and have recently joined a new team. Here I have been asked to create a functional document looking at the code of a legacy application. This application was written about 8-...
mehta's user avatar
  • 121
4 votes
1 answer
94 views

Continuous "Platform" Integration?

We have accumulated a large codebase of somewhat-well-document projects, many of which aren't actively being used, but that we want to be able to start using again quickly if necessary. What is the ...
Eagle's user avatar
  • 143
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

Software failure due to maintenance oversights example/case study

I'm doing some investigation into the role of maintenance in software development and the use of metrics within the development cycle. What I am asking is for a point in the right direction or ...
Ben Maxfield's user avatar
11 votes
6 answers
926 views

What changes are too big to be made easy by proper design?

This is a rather vague question, but it's something I've never felt has been answered in a satisfactory way when reading about proper design. Generally, when learning about Object Oriented ...
exists-forall's user avatar
41 votes
10 answers
3k views

Is it a good idea to schedule regular time to clean up code? [closed]

I'm managing a small team of developers. Every so often we decide we're going to spend a day or two to clean up our code. Would it be a good idea to schedule regular time, say 1 week every 2 months, ...
user84667's user avatar
  • 263
28 votes
6 answers
2k views

Maintain a web application once the only developer is gone

I have a terminal disease and there is a very high chance that I will no longer be in this world by the end of the year. I have developed a web application that it is extensively used in my family’s ...
user986244's user avatar
4 votes
4 answers
2k views

What can I do to maintain respect for a poorly written codebase? [duplicate]

In my job I have to maintain a poorly written codebase which is both hard to understand, has tons of comments that are just plain wrong, has a bunch of weird decisionmaking going on in it and a whole ...
Daniel Figueroa's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
308 views

Study a project to be able to maintain it in future [closed]

I've joined as a fresher (trainee) a software company developing for Windows Store. I don't know much about C#. My company has started Windows Store development recently. They didn't do .Net ...
Kumar's user avatar
  • 31