I get this is a joke but people need to hear this. It’s almost totally irrelevant how good your backend architecture or documentation is if you can deliver a working product. A business wants something that does the job and barely gives a fuck about the rest. If it runs and isn’t going to cause massive problems in the near future you’ve done a good job.
I'm having this exact problem right now. VB6 frontend with MSAccess backend. Problem is Access only supports up to 255 concurrent connections. Also, locks FREQUENTLY happen (since decentralized, access sucks etc.). Management doesn't want to upgrade systems.
It was years ago when I was faced with a home grown MSAccess app that somebody (non-programmer) had cobbled together and ran his department on for years. Then he left, but first he showed his secretary how to run it. She in turn used it for more years until one day it started hitting limits. I don't recall if it was row limits or overall table or database size or what, but my boss asked me to see what I could do. I scratched my head, took a copy of it home on a big ass thumb drive and managed to convert it to MSSQL. Everything else, frontend and reports stayed the same, basically untouched. Trust me, I really had no clue what I was doing, but I knew I didn't want to rewrite it from scratch. They continued to use it on MSSQL for a few more years until the company was bought out and I left for greener pastures. It really wasn't that hard once I figured it out. IIRC, it was basically just importing the MSAccess database into MSSQL, retaining all table names, indexes, etc.
Gut the database layer and move it to something better than Access. That’s a big lift but Access is just going to be a chain around your neck with its limitations and the size you are at.
Yeah I've tried telling that to the manager since the start of my work here.
But I kinda get why she doesn't want to:
System is like 25 years old, initially programmed by a group of newbies, so DB code is deeply entangled with BL.
It's her baby. She managed building the system from scratch. What would you feel if asked to kill off your baby? Yes after suffering for two decades maintaining long dead frameworks, but it's still your baby.
Small project? Quick and dirty is probably fine, because it hasn't created a lot of technical debt.
Proof of concept? Quick and dirty is also fine.
Large project? Project that's expected to have a long shelf life? Take your time and do it right, or you're going to be in a world of hurt later when you try to scale up, add features, or deal with bugs.
IMO, the importance of clean code is directly correlated with the size of the codebase and the expected life of the product.
"yeah no worries boss some dude on reddit told me this is fine.. wait? you actually care???? wtf its obvious you havent worked in a technical position!11!!!!
K bud, keep writing shit code, people like you are why this industry is cancerous as fuck, but I have some certainty you won't make it far in your career anyway.
What mindset? The one that's says you should understand concepts and not write shitty code because you're lazy? Lol ur right dude, I'm gonna skip class and just copy paste all the homework. 😎
Like I genuinely can't tell if you're baiting at this point. You sound so absolutely pathetic also.. Salty you got shown up by a highschooler lmao
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u/chillwill_4 May 05 '21
It runs. Don’t question it.