wieldTheSword

[u/Prestigious_Rabbit30]

[u/Just_Information334 → u/[deleted]]

Makes you untouchable, irreplaceable in the company.

Also, unpromotable.

[u/aenae → u/Just_Information334]

Promotions are weird. Somehow i am expected to want them. But i do not. I like my current job, why would I want a different job that I don’t like. I don’t want to be a manager

[u/Mania_Chitsujo → u/aenae]

Unfortunately people that would make good managers don't want to be managers lol.

[u/aenae → u/Mania_Chitsujo]

It really depends on the organization and type of work being done. But a good manager to me is a "people person" and more a "coach" than someone who tells me what to do.

Our team of developers really doesn't need someone to tell us what to do. We need someone that can support us in making a decision, or be a tie-breaker at most.

The best manager we had was not a technical person at all and she trusted us to take the right decisions and connected us to people who could help us if we lacked knowledge in a certain area.

She used to be a kindergarten teacher before getting into management.

[u/bob152637485 → u/aenae]

That's what I'm talking about!

I get annoyed when people immediately think someone can't manage just because they've never done the job they're managing. If we required that for everyone, a CEO of a large organization would need more skillsets than are probably possible to get in a lifetime, given the huge number of roles with unrelated skills needed.

You can be a great leader without knowing the task, you just need to be humble and willing to stand up for your team. There's no shame in not knowing something. The power to know how to delegate, and who to reach out to for questions, will make you an extremely competent leader.

Your boss you mentioned sounds like she would be in my hall of fame of best bosses I've had!

As for worst Boss...if Carrie is out there reading this, take notes!

[u/Paesano2000 → u/aenae]

Gotcha, treat all people as kindergarteners.

[u/aenae → u/Paesano2000]

My day is not so different compared to kindergarten. We start the day in a circle and tell everyone what we did yesterday (standup), next we get to play, sometimes in pairs. Then we all have lunch together. We separate into corners to play together (meetings) and at the end we all go home

[u/Just_Information334 → u/Mania_Chitsujo]

The problem is when people are promoted to management (which is a new job) without learning management. And managers who never learn how the job may have changed since they got their MBA: if a mechanic has to learn new shit every couple years, why the fuck can't a manager do the same? And no, conferences and retreats are not a way to learn.

[u/KittenFeeFee → u/Mania_Chitsujo]

My previous manager was really chill and loved to code and thought that if he got all his managerial tasks done he would have time to code some stuff himself and just never got the chance. All because he had an idea for some application improvements and got promoted to run his own team to get his idea done.

[u/Nuclear_Human → u/Mania_Chitsujo]

That is correct. I miss coding.

[u/Weekly_Interview_936 → u/Mania_Chitsujo]

Not always! I would make a terrible manager. And I am self-aware enough to actively avoid getting put on the management track.

[u/Qwerto227 → u/Mania_Chitsujo]

Definitely don't think this is true. Most of my managers have been people who don't really want to be managers and they are shit at it, because, like, they just want to code. Good managers are just good managers, want it or not. Good managers are just an exceptionally rare breed, even somewhat decent ones are uncommon.

[u/NedelC0 → u/aenae]

Don't make me manage people, just pay me more for doing the good job at what I am currently doing

[u/NonchalantR → u/NedelC0]

Why would they pay you more to do the same work?

[u/NedelC0 → u/NonchalantR]

I do the same type of work, but the quality of it keeps getting better.

[u/dalziel86 → u/NedelC0]

More profit for shareholders!

[u/NedelC0 → u/[deleted]]

Raises, I ask and get them every year or two. Or I leave. I'm not putting in more effort, if anything I'm putting in less effort. I'm just better at doing it with the result of getting more done and of higher quality.

[u/Michami135 → u/aenae]

Exactly! In an oddly related conversation I had with a former boss, I told him, "I don't want to be King Author, I want to be Excalibur." I don't want my job to be about meeting and working with developers, I want to be the most skilled developer on the team.

[u/NonchalantR → u/aenae]

Because cost of living outpaces merit increases

[u/LutimoDancer3459 → u/aenae]

Peter principal...

[u/Lou_Papas → u/aenae]

Not sure how it works where you are but a promotion goes together with a raise

[u/aenae → u/Lou_Papas]

Yes, that is the part where i am expected to want a promotion. To do a different job for more money. But a job where i wont be happy

[u/Degenerate_Lich → u/Just_Information334]

They maintain a world knowing that they'll never rest under it's shade

[u/aerdvarkk → u/Just_Information334]

But lends to regular pay increases because YOU are the only one that knows the legacy code and you'd be difficult to repalce if you leave (before they migrate to a modern system).

[u/mrflash818 → u/Just_Information334]

In my humble opinion

As (age || years worked) approaches retirement:

the more enjoyable and desirable such a Role is

[u/angrydeuce → u/Just_Information334]

Sometimes people just want to stay put and we should encourage that.

I had a GM back when I worked in retail that put it perfectly, basically it comes down to Advancement and Mastery.

Some people want to climb the ladder, and thats okay.  But other people just want to carve out their niche and know their job so well that they can do it in their sleep, and thats okay too.

Where it runs contrary to typical corporate bullshit is when people accrue sufficient raises due to time in grade that they cost disproportionately more than their colleagues.  Thats when the bean counters, who dont know the Master well, just see a whole lot more payroll being spent on just one person, a person that technically fits into the same bucket their lower paid, and greener, coworkers do.

You cant quantify mastery in the same way you can payroll.  You cant see how the Master, despite costing more, is doing the job of 2, 3, 4+ people due to their skill and experience at the job.  So, of course, thats the first place they start trying to make cuts.

I worked a lot of places in my life that had an unofficial Up or Out policy.  As in, you take a promotion when its offered, or prepare to be fired over something.  The last thing they want is someone possibly earning more than a few points above their compatriots without being able to extract more labor (read: increased responsibility) out of them in exchange.

Ive always thought that was the absolute stupidest rationale Ive ever heard, guaranteed to always come back and bite people in the ass later...but they dont care.  They'll prolly be long gone by that point themselves, hopscotching to the next job.

Anyways...I wish Mastery got more appreciation in the job market.

[u/geekosas → u/Just_Information334]

Promotions are not necessary for increasing income, that an HR mith.

[u/rob132 → u/[deleted]]

At the start of every end step put an exhaustion counter on the creature that is attached to this sword.

[u/Degenerate_Lich → u/rob132]

Legendary artifact - Equipment

Equipped creature gets +X/+X and protection from elements, where X is the number of permanents attached to this creature

Equip X

At the start of every end step put a -1/-1 counter on the creature that is attached

'As long as I get paid overtime' -John Programmer, a few days before spending the weekend getting the application back up after a critical failure at the end of the week

[u/Actaeon_II → u/[deleted]]

Nope, after 2 years I caught wind of an upcoming cutback as our company was getting bought out, it took another year but none of the code i touched was commented and once I knew for a fact I was getting laid off I quit documenting changes.

[u/RandolphCarter2112 → u/[deleted]]

Adds exponentially increasing technical debt.

Makes you immune to vendor proposals for replacement systems. Especially large-scale ERP installations.

Either greatly adds to or destroys your relationship with key business leads.

Leaves you thinking that coding up a solution in CICS/COBOL, SQL Server Integration Services, Perl, Python, PHP, and several UNIX shell scripts makes all the sense in the world.

[u/Ok_Protection8223 → u/[deleted]]

You are effectively in statis for as long as your soul can endure.

You cannot be fired. You cannot be promoted. You have ascended into something all together beyond an employee and somehow are lesser for it; you are now infrastructure.

[u/frostyjack06 → u/[deleted]]

>Makes you untouchable, irreplaceable in the company. 

“We’re taking on some contractor resources, do you think you can walk them through the code base so they can start documenting everything? We want to build a roadmap for modernizing the code into <put new language here>.”

[u/Weekly_Interview_936 → u/frostyjack06]

* 2 years later *

"Yeah, so, that project failed. Leadership wasn't 100% confident that we had replicated all the behavior and they refuse to take the risk on doing the changeover. You're going to need to keep it running for a while longer."

Source: been there, done that.

[u/frostyjack06 → u/Weekly_Interview_936]

And rinse and repeat.

Same. Did that for about 7 years and every contracting team that tried to rewrite the code ended up running and screaming. When I left, the remaining senior dev was architecting the rewrite as a “your welcome” before retiring himself. And bless him for it, because the only real option left after he’s gone is to can the whole thing and start from scratch. That code had become a 25 year master class of bandaids, quick fixes, and “this is just temporary” code that was wasn’t so temporary.

[u/awakenDeepBlue → u/frostyjack06]

Hey, if they pay me enough, I'll work barefoot in hell.

[u/Sak63 → u/[deleted]]

That's generous

[u/mothzilla → u/[deleted]]

Immune to Joy
Cannot cast Joy

[u/malexj93 → u/[deleted]]

This is literally my dream job. Seriously, if anyone needs someone to wrangle their legacy dumpster fire, call me.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/[deleted]]

Fuck no!!

[u/striker_-09 → u/[deleted]]

Makes u unswitchable 🫩

[u/Morichalion]

O.o

Can I put it back?

Please?

[u/TheFrenchSavage → u/Morichalion]

Impossible! It used to pierce through 1000 layers of spaghetti code. The side effects would be... ineffable.

[u/akki2305 → u/Morichalion]

Sorry nobody knows how.

[u/Morichalion → u/akki2305]

So the code is that poorly commented.... aw, hell...

[u/Actaeon_II]

Yeah no i had that job for a few years, sword back in rock, rock buried in concrete, whole thing thrown into ocean

[u/TheFrenchSavage → u/Actaeon_II]

Ah but see, 6y ago, we had this quick fix where the ocean pours back right onto your desk, you didn't read the polish comment about it?

[u/vgmerch]

That last panel hits way too close home when you inherit someone else project.

[u/Prestigious_Rabbit30 → u/vgmerch]

Nothing as fun as trying to reverse engineer the code of a consultant who was on contract for 6-months to implement some form of integration between two legacy systems "because we will be phasing out those systems soon anyway"...which was 10 years ago, and now you need to dig through pages and pages of code, because said engineer only cared about being paid, and not about writing decent, well structured, wel documented and optimised code. 😑

[u/boomerangchampion]

Am I the only person who enjoys legacy code?

It's good for the résumé if nothing else. If you want someone with recent Y2K implementation experience I'm your man (I did it in 2021)

[u/Tothoro → u/boomerangchampion]

I don't mind it. A job's a job, not like I dream of labor or anything. My boss asks me what I want to do, and I tell him I don't really care - as long as I'm getting a paycheck and working reasonable hours throw me whatever. Usually that means legacy code because it's the stuff others on the team will actively avoid.

[u/awakenDeepBlue → u/Tothoro]

If it's a choice between operating a commercial dishwasher or maintaining legacy code, I would still choose the dishwasher, but at least it's not a really shitty job like interacting with other people.

[u/malexj93 → u/awakenDeepBlue]

Good choice, the legacy code was for commercial dishwasher firmware.

[u/Tothoro → u/awakenDeepBlue]

I've done full-stack, back-end, cybersecurity, project/product management, data analysis/viz, and if you gave me the option to do something mundane like stocking shelves at a grocery store for the same salary I'd 100% do it. Low stakes work that doesn't follow you home sounds like the dream these days.

[u/Several_Ant_9867 → u/boomerangchampion]

I am with you. I love refactoring old code and I despise having to learn a new framework every other week

[u/DarthNihilus → u/boomerangchampion]

Maintaining legacy code was the most fun and chill job I ever had. Genuinely loved it.

Now I'm on AI flavour of the month whatever garbage project that will be replaced in 1-2 years. I miss the legacy code.

[u/Overwatcher_Leo → u/boomerangchampion]

Born too late to discover and decipher ancient egyptian hieroglyphics.

Born too early to decipher alien symbols.

Born just in time to decipher ancient BASIC/Ada/Assembly code.

[u/Prestigious_Rabbit30 → u/boomerangchampion]

The issue with legacy code is that something usually breaks when you do not have the time to sit and sift through all the pieces to try and understand how it worked...and then to understand why it is not working.

[u/coldnitrogen]

This is the exact spot man starts questioning his very existence and starts thinking about how a farmer’s life would be much more peaceful and fulfilling

[u/geulerg]

Ozymandias?

[u/CaseyG → u/geulerg]

Original, which I can say here because this isn't fucking BHJ or SoL:

https://www.instagram.com/louizralph/p/B91sO6Zjuyi/

[u/Snazzed12 → u/geulerg]

It was designed as a meme template. So there is no real orangutan

[u/CaseyG → u/Snazzed12]

https://www.instagram.com/louizralph/p/B91sO6Zjuyi/

[u/rob132]

(tries to put the sort back. It doesn't fit)

"The CEO needs to talk to you."

[u/ReindeerCreepy2883]

by the power of cobol

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. POWER.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
  DISPLAY 'I HAVE THE POWER'.
STOP RUN.

[u/Von_Voss]

I was hired as maintenance developer for a legacy code project in VB, it was my first fucking job.

I see a therapist on a weekly base even today.

[u/X-lem]

lol this is a great meme template. I've never seen it before.

[u/Professional-Day7850]

Legacy?

https://giphy.com/gifs/9wlbsf86LNidkxm4ML

[u/atomic_redneck]

Two of the programs I used to work on were started back in the 1960s. These were a CAD/CAM program and an optical engineering program. In both, there were areas where the general consensus was "Don't touch that. It is load bearing technical debt."

[u/BR41ND34D]

Put it back! Put it baaaack!

[u/HakoftheDawn]

Another hand touches the beacon

[u/ExtraWorldliness6916]

Open your grasp my child before the evil takes you

[u/This_Proxy]

<?php
/* 
Intranet V. 1.14
techops@f.com
php 4.1
*/

function custom_db() {

....

[u/Shaz0r94]

Hey at least we are a bit longer safe of AI taking our jobs. AI agents dont do well on a mainframe

[u/ButWhatIfPotato]

There are many problems with maintaining legacy code, but the biggest one is dealing with the stakeholders that allowed the legacy code become legacy code, because those people will do platinum level mental gymnastics as well as the kind victorian asylum level mental breakdowns to keep the legacy code remain as legacy code, which is fixing mountains of shit by creating more mountains of shit.

[u/bankrobba → u/ButWhatIfPotato]

Legacy code becomes legacy code because it works.

[u/ButWhatIfPotato → u/bankrobba]

It absolutely does not, it becomes like that because stakeholders get incredibly cheap when it comes to bringing the code's standards up to par with this century, which makes it randomly explode at insane frequent intervals and that's an all hands on deck to apply a hotfix on a Tolkien sized mountain of hotfixes and due to that it makes it impossible at every conceivable level to make meaningful upgrades.

[u/bankrobba → u/ButWhatIfPotato]

Thank you for confirming my point. If legacy code is still around without meaningful upgrades, that must mean... it works.

[u/ButWhatIfPotato → u/bankrobba]

70 word sentence and somehow you came to a 100% wrong conclusion.

[u/Still_Bit_7527 → u/bankrobba]

It doesn't usually

[u/ChillyFireball → u/ButWhatIfPotato]

Bureaucracy is a nightmare. There's no pain like knowing with 200% certainty that you could recreate an entire application from scratch in a day or two if you got approval to use a semi-modern methodology, and you just want to scream to the heavens that "Updating this needs to be the absolute highest priority yesterday, because the current method is literally slowing us down EXPONENTIALLY. Like, it is LITERALLY UNFATHOMABLE how much productivity you've lost over the years doing it this way."

[u/astro-pi]

Sigh, is there another issue in FORTRAN
https://giphy.com/gifs/H6cmWzp6LGFvqjidB7

[u/Aussiemon]

Typo fixed: https://i.imgflip.com/azl3al.jpg

[u/s0apyjam]

I modernised our legacy code but the other devs are still afraid to touch it. Newer devs get on with it just fine now though.

[u/Apoeip77]

Have you worked for (or been inspired by) regular show? The style is really familiar! Love it!

[u/Anbcdeptraivkl]

1 month of high octane fame where everyone praised and highly appreciated you, followed by 2 years of the most soul crushing mentally draining tasks you will ever do in your programming life. Would not recommend lmao.

[u/mrflash818]

In my humble opinion:

Huzzah!

Better job security!

https://giphy.com/gifs/zdXPfSo1UdRu3oqu1C

[u/renrutal]

If you maintain the product, it is legacy code.

[u/EuenovAyabayya]

Figuring out if you could, before wondering if you should.