Author Archives: Kyle Tucker

The Troubles Of Learning Codebases

Often when joining a new job, you won’t be writing a new codebase from the ground up. Often we’ll have to familiarize ourselves with the preexisting codebase. Sometimes this codebase is old and needs to be updated or refactored. But how should we go about doing this? It is challenging enough to try to learn a new codebase, let alone trying to change or add to it. That’s what the question the article “Reducing The Learning Curve For Supporting Aging Codebases” by Scott Fitzpatrick aims to answer. The articles offer some dos and don’ts when it comes to trying to make it easier to learn a code base.

One of the first don’ts is to not rely on face-to face conversations and messages/email conversations. While these conversations can be helpful for developers in the moment, they offer little for someone trying to learn the codebase. Plus they can be hard to find and subject to deletion. I think the main point to take away from this article is the importance of good documentation and other resources. When it comes to making a codebase easier to understand, not just for newcomers. Having multiple avenues to try to learn from is important. Beyond just looking at the code, things like data flow and entity-relationship graphs. 

Other aspects beyond code are important too. Like good documentation on local environment set-up and system requirements/dependencies. Making these clear not only makes it easier from the newcomer, but also it helps learn about the frameworks and why they were chosen for the project. Knowing why an application uses certain frameworks and projects can help a new developer understand the reasoning and choices of the team.

Learning a new codebase is very challenging for anyone. I think this article offers good insights as to why certain practices are good and why some are bad. This also once again highlights why I think communication is the most important skill for a software developer. Being able to communicate with other developers not only through code, but through documentation is a very important skill. Making the lives of fellow developers easier by finding as many ways to communicate design and ideas. Although most developers hate writing documentation, it is a necessary evil that must be done.

I will definitely keep this in mind when writing code. Of course writing code that is readable takes precedence. But keeping up to date documentation is also vital to keep projects on track. I personally haven’t worked on a large project involving a large codebase before. So I haven’t had to write documentation for something that I didn’t write. Most of the time I don’t feel the need to write what the function or class does because I made it, so I already know. I think that’s a habit a lot of programmers have, that leads to a lot of lack or bad documentation. It’s something that I don’t have a lot of practice in, so its a skill I’ll have to start honing.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Code Craft by Kyle Tucker and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Speed Over Design

The following blog I would like to talk about is called “The Hidden Cost of Speed” by Brayden H. Hord. He begins with a quick story about a project he worked on. In this story he describes how he, in an attempt to impress his bosses and meet his co-workers needs, pushed out a product as fast as possible. This worked for the moment. His bosses were happy and he continued his work. However months later, bugs and issues are arriving daily. The software he quickly developed was being used on a daily basis, something he had not anticipated. Now all the shortcuts he had taken earlier had come back to bite him. Now he had something that was being used extensively that was built poorly. 

Now he and his team had to work laboriously to try to fix these fundamental issues. Fixing the problems but also trying to interface between management and stakeholders. The truth is that these problems could have been avoided. If he had better planned and took more time to access the needs and requirements of the project. The moral of the story is that taking time to build right saves headaches down the line. The rest of the blog goes into more detail about why planning and communication are fundamental for all software developers. 

The reason I choose this blog is because I think it highlights one of the most important factors when it comes to software development, Communication. Most software is not built by one person, but rather a team of people. What makes a good team is communication, making sure everyone is on the same page. I think this is important to remember because building without a plan is a recipe for failure. It’s easy to get excited and try to push something that works. But something built on shoddy foundations is always destined to fall. 

Sure your code may work at the moment, but somewhere down the line issues will arise. As needs and more complex architecture is needed, the holes in the code will rear their ugly head. That’s why building code that takes into account not only the needs of now, but also the needs of the future. Building architecture that makes life easier in the future, not harder. I think that this is an important lesson for any software developer to know. Because building something right not only makes your life easier, but everyone else on the team’s lives easier as well.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Code Craft by Kyle Tucker and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

First Post For CS-348

This is so cool, my first post for CS-348. Stay tuned for more posts like this

From the blog CS@Worcester – Code Craft by Kyle Tucker and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Welcome To CS-343

Hi welcome to my first blog post for CS-343.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Code Craft by Kyle Tucker and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.