How to justify to your colleagues that they produce crappy code?

Question

I am finding somewhat difficult to carry on working in my current job.

The codebase has become a bit wild lately (but definitely not the worse I\'ve seen), and I\'m havi

Answer 1

Sometimes your fellow programmers do things very differently than you, and things you might feel are way wrong might actually have positive aspects. We all have our schools we come from. I think I've come across programmers who complain about things I don't understand equally as often that I myself have felt something needs to be complained about.

Make sure you can deduce what you complain about into a concrete disadvantage. If for no other reason so that you can motivate middle management about improvements to make. Things that are hard to deduce into measurable facts usually originates from difference in taste/style rather than quality (there are boooks to read about this subject). The answer posted by smacl have good and concrete advice!

If you can deduce your concern into a real disadvantage, then I really do not agree when people say that one have to "accept" situations like this. I've been exposed to this problem more than once, and let me tell you, refactoring is not the solution to the problem. Refactoring only fixes the symptoms.

Accepting a situation like this is the same as saying "bad quality product lines and expensive and frustrating maintenance is something my company can live with". This is ofcourse seldomly the case. However management (i.e. those with the go/no-go on what projects to prioritize) are very often not technically aware of what the problems are, or why development is expensive. They shouldn't have to be for that matter.

That's why you need a development organization with technical leads, chief architects, a good organisational structure and tiered model etc. Experienced software professionals who have seen where the road leads to if you ignore certain aspects of development. It's about changing the "culture" of your team(s).

Either you stick with your company and try to change how you do things from the roots, or you find another place to work and make sure you find out during the interview exactly how they work in every-day development.

Good luck