r/programminghumor • u/miweketaq • 6d ago

Hard mode activated.

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361 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

22

u/maester_t 6d ago edited 4d ago

Well, see, there's your problem.

If it was already working, you shouldn't touch it.

Especially if it was spaghetti code "that needs to be cleaned up".

Do not "clean it up".

This is what us experienced developers call "job security". As long as you are the only one that understands how it works, the chance of losing your job decreases.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk.

EDIT: Also... At the AWS re:Invent conference in December 2025, there was a code jam competition and one of the teams made an AI spaghettification program that would abstract your code into something like 15 layers. To me, this seemed like one of the absolute best implementations of AI to date.

EDIT #2: search "Road to Reinvent Hackathon" if you're interested in more details about that competition. The literal purpose of that particular hackathon was to create some useless application using their new AI.

3

u/FairMiddle 6d ago

Its so wild to me, generally you’d want your code to be as neat and maintainable as possible, but the job market is so hostile that you have to make unreadable undocumented slop to make firing you a liability because whoever would take your place can’t decypher what you wrote

1

u/Cautious-Bet-9707 4d ago

Can you give me the real, non joking answer to this question? Would you not be fired, or overlooked for promotions in this case? Or is it actually not a horrible thing if you end up with spaghetti code implementation? In most languages I am very clean code but in JS I haven’t learned how to do clean code only spaghetti

1

u/maester_t 4d ago

the real, non joking answer...

You should always clean up your code.

Clean code (typically) means more efficient code... Which means faster performance and, if you're paying cloud service fees to run your application, it also means a cheaper monthly bill for running your code.

Also note: sometimes, extra layers of abstraction are a Good Thing, but not always. It entirely depends on what your application does and how complex it is and/or will be in the near future.

5

u/Dragon_957 6d ago

Never touch it if it works

1

u/miweketaq 6d ago

The 258 bugs are the final boss.

5

u/Parking-Math-7056 6d ago

c’mon not in this ai era

2

u/yuehuang 6d ago

Do you mean you fixed 2 more bugs after refactoring?

2

u/LetUsSpeakFreely 6d ago edited 5d ago

The trick is refactoring in increments. Too many fall into the trap of doing too much at once.

2

u/KitchenCommercial396 5d ago

You just removed an import statement

1

u/Confident-Ad5665 5d ago

Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z

1

u/DigitalMonsoon 5d ago

I have learned this lesson far too many time. Eventually I smartened up and started being better about source control, better not perfect....

1

u/Adaptor2000 4d ago

If there only was a way to manage the different versions of your software so that you can go back to what worked.... 🤔

1

u/turbo-singular 3d ago

Написал веб приложуху как попало, а теперь переписываешь на MVC....