The activities that occur after deployment of a software system. This includes making modifications to released systems, training, operating, and transitioning to support organizations.
0
votes
1answer
41 views
Resources for learning how to properly set up and manage a web application on a VPS?
I feel uncomfortable trusting in Heroku magic without actually knowing what it takes to serve and maintain an application.
I don't know exactly what to look for. It's easy to find docs specific to ...
1
vote
1answer
63 views
Strategies for removing register_globals from a file
I have a file (or rather, a list of about 100 files) in my website's repository that is still requiring the use of register_globals and other nastiness (like custom error reporting, etc) because the ...
3
votes
1answer
50 views
data maintenance/migrations in image based sytems
Web applications usually have a database.
The code and the database work hand in hand together.
Therefore Frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Django create migration files
Sure there are also servers ...
46
votes
5answers
2k views
Does dedicated maintenance work hamper a programmer's career? [duplicate]
The majority of my work over the last three years has largely been around maintaining legacy systems that needed patching up or the occasional revamp before being sold again.
I understand the ...
2
votes
2answers
192 views
How can I keep a production Python environment secure?
Most of my work is creating websites in Django (a Python web framework) and deploying them to my own or clients' servers. I work from a virtualenv to separate site from system packages and have ...
0
votes
0answers
80 views
How to quickly understand a huge piece of code [duplicate]
(This is a general question but I think is important.)
How do you quickly understand a huge piece of code, say, a project with tens of thousands of lines of code (written by other people)?
Are there ...
0
votes
0answers
45 views
Buggy System Management [duplicate]
Recently I acquired support for an existing live system. The system is so BUGGY and every single change would break something else.
I am struggling to manage my time/effort between adding new ...
1
vote
6answers
531 views
Working in a company that does not comment their code at all? [duplicate]
I work for a small software development house (10~ developers, a few product managers and a few support staff) that sells various products and services to organisations internationally through ...
0
votes
1answer
142 views
Introducing Fowler's Table Data Gateway to refactor poorly designed systems
I am developing an application, which currently has about 150,000 lines of code. The previous developer didn't really use any discipline when writing code. Application is in production but is ...
1
vote
2answers
106 views
How to handle product rebranding in code in a short time frame
We've all been there - a product feature is called "gold", and then a week before launch they decide it is to be called "platinum". Luckily, you had some nous about you so the UI code is easy to ...
2
votes
2answers
127 views
Starting a recurring project from scratch [duplicate]
We have a project that keeps recurring. The client expects us to run a website twice a year and this is happened for the last year and a half. I took the last working copy and based our latest website ...
0
votes
2answers
92 views
Proper name for a project supports 2 different release
Is there a technical name for a software project where the current and prior stable releases are both maintained?
0
votes
2answers
109 views
Strategy for reading and understanding Node.js code [duplicate]
Concretely I am looking at this 2000 line file of what I will pretty arbitrarily call "mediocre" code.
It's not well-commented
variable names and function names seem consistently intelligent
...
1
vote
1answer
98 views
Maintenance code needs improvements [duplicate]
I am currently maintaining/enhancing a project a bit old speaking of the 1990's. Atleast 15 developers would have worked over it.
Going through the code for understanding is bit difficult.
No ...
59
votes
8answers
4k views
How should you deal with a popular project that you no longer want to maintain?
I am the maintainer of a project which has a large non-technical userbase. I've been maintaining it for about 4 years now and adding new features as they've been requested.
I'd like to move on to ...
0
votes
1answer
119 views
Functional document from code
I am a Sr java Developer and have recently joined a new team. Here I have been asked to create a functional document looking at the code of a legacy application. This application was written about ...
4
votes
1answer
69 views
Continuous “Platform” Integration?
We have accumulated a large codebase of somewhat-well-document projects, many of which aren't actively being used, but that we want to be able to start using again quickly if necessary.
What is the ...
2
votes
1answer
233 views
Software failure due to maintenance oversights example/case study
I'm doing some investigation into the role of maintenance in software development and the use of metrics within the development cycle.
What I am asking is for a point in the right direction or ...
10
votes
6answers
531 views
What changes are too big to be made easy by proper design?
This is a rather vague question, but it's something I've never felt has been answered in a satisfactory way when reading about proper design.
Generally, when learning about Object Oriented ...
40
votes
10answers
2k views
Is it a good idea to schedule regular time to clean up code? [closed]
I'm managing a small team of developers. Every so often we decide we're going to spend a day or two to clean up our code.
Would it be a good idea to schedule regular time, say 1 week every 2 months, ...
23
votes
5answers
827 views
Maintain a web application once the only developer is gone
I have a terminal disease and there is a very high chance that I will no longer be in this world by the end of the year.
I have developed a web application that it is extensively used in my family’s ...
3
votes
4answers
499 views
What can I do to maintain respect for a poorly written codebase? [duplicate]
In my job I have to maintain a poorly written codebase which is both hard to understand, has tons of comments that are just plain wrong, has a bunch of weird decisionmaking going on in it and a whole ...
2
votes
3answers
247 views
Study a project to be able to maintain it in future
I've joined as a fresher (trainee) a software company developing for Windows Store. I don't know much about C#. My company has started Windows Store development recently. They didn't do .Net ...
6
votes
6answers
244 views
Policy and practice on code maintenance
I just came out of University and have been working at this company for roughly 8 months, while I was given the title of developer, most of the time I have spent on is fixing and debugging other ...
9
votes
4answers
662 views
How to convince my coworkers that doing things right will save them time
I recently started at a new company, with a handful of programmers. Its a medium sized company, with around 70 employees, but IT only has 9-10, and there are 3 "programmers" beside myself. However, ...
4
votes
3answers
279 views
Functional testing before code checkin
I am working on a project with legacy code where it does not have much code coverage. One of the idea to improve that is to enforce a rule that each code check-in must have test, not only test but ...
2
votes
3answers
350 views
How can I determine how to charge for supporting SharePoint sites and SharePoint development?
I recently created a site in SharePoint and I need to setup a maintenance/support agreement for the site. In addition to the site, there are some custom modules that were developed that we monitor. ...
10
votes
2answers
210 views
What tools or techniques are useful for describing an unfamiliar codebase?
When manually inspecting unfamiliar code (to review or modify), I seem to have three options.
A top-down read of the code, choosing each next source file by how fundamental the filename seems. I ...
67
votes
21answers
6k views
How would you react if someone told you your code is a mess?
I am a good programmer, or so I thought before. I always love to program. And I want to learn many things about programming to make me a better programmer. I studied programming for 1 year and now I ...
-2
votes
1answer
120 views
What should I aware of , when preparing a document of website for later maintenance use? [closed]
The development team has finished a website and my duty is to prepare a document so that other programmers can maintain the website with ease.
I have no experience in this and would like to ask what ...
7
votes
9answers
650 views
What is the way to understand someone else's giant uncommented spaghetti code? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
I’ve inherited 200K lines of spaghetti code — what now?
I have been recently handled a giant multithreaded program with no comments and have been asked to understand ...
1
vote
5answers
485 views
What is the concept of software wear and tear?
I have heard that over time, software can begin to show signs of wear and tear.
What does wear and tear of software mean?
Software itself not being a physical entity, so how can there be wear and ...
4
votes
7answers
526 views
Is there an opposite for the term “Backporting”?
As I understand, the term "Backporting" is used to describe a fix which is applied in a future version which is also ported to a previous version. Wikipedia definition is as follows:
Backporting ...
16
votes
2answers
631 views
How do people maintain their test suite?
In particular, I'm curious about the following aspects:
How do you know that your test cases are wrong (or out-of-date) and needed to be repaired (or discarded)? I mean, even if a test case became ...
8
votes
8answers
809 views
Copy-and-Pasted Test Code: How Bad is This?
My current job is mostly writing GUI test code for various applications that we work on. However, I find that I tend to copy and paste a lot of code within tests. The reason for this is that the areas ...
1
vote
5answers
534 views
“Opportunity” to take over maintenance of a small internal website. What should I do?
I have been offered an "opportunity" to take over maintenance of a small internal website run by my group that provides information about schedules and photos of events the groups done.
My manager ...
7
votes
1answer
122 views
Maintenance model for external artifacts
When we think about maintaining a software solution holistically, we have to think about things like non-code change control and configuration management, in addition to the actual source code. For ...
0
votes
4answers
392 views
What Are Some Tips For Writing A Large Number of Unit Tests? [closed]
I've recently been tasked with testing some COM objects of the desktop app I work on. What this means in practice is writing a large number (>100) unit tests to test different but related methods and ...
4
votes
1answer
136 views
What is the best approach to getting to know a big system like a CMS or forum system which has no documentation?
My problem is the following; I need to get to know a totally new system, for example Wordpress, Drupal, or a framework like Symfony, or maybe a big forum system like PhpBB.
Let's suppose it has no ...
8
votes
3answers
276 views
How do you break out of the role of a code maintainer? [closed]
In my last three jobs, I was a code maintainer. In all three cases, I was hired after the majority of the code for the project was already written.
I'm a self taught programmer. Before I ever started ...
20
votes
6answers
1k views
How to fix a project with basically no structure?
I've been working on a software project mostly solo for over 5 years. It was a mess to begin with (I am the third or fourth developer to be working on it), and although it's less of a mess now it is ...
12
votes
8answers
2k views
Should we ever delete data in a database?
I am new to databases and trying to understand the basic concepts. I have learned how to delete data in a database. But one of my friends told me that you should never delete data in a database. ...
3
votes
2answers
87 views
Handling fast growing multi-function services
My team has been developing a web business application for more than a year. It started quite small, but now it is growing bigger and bigger. I think it's time for refactoring.
Looking at the code, I ...
8
votes
6answers
805 views
How to ease the maintenance of event driven code?
When using an event based component I often feel some pain at maintenance phase.
Since the executed code is all split around it can be quite hard to figure what will be all the code part that will ...
385
votes
19answers
72k views
I've inherited 200K lines of spaghetti code — what now?
I hope this isn't too general of a question; I could really use some seasoned advice.
I am newly employed as the sole "SW Engineer" in a fairly small shop of scientists who have spent the last 10-20 ...
9
votes
5answers
763 views
Zero as a constant?
I have come across this programming idiom recently:
const float Zero = 0.0;
which is then used in comparisons:
if (x > Zero) {..}
Can anyone explain if this is really any more efficient or ...
7
votes
2answers
398 views
How do you call the process of taking a part of a function and making an individual function of it?
I know there was a technical term for this. I'm just can't remember what it was.
If the title needs clarification, here is what I mean; If this is the old code:
Result foobar(Param1,Param2,Param3) {
...
3
votes
1answer
101 views
How should I write new code when the old codebase and the environment uses lots of globals in PHP
I'm working in the Wordpress environment which itself heavily relies on globals and the codebase I'm maintaining introduces some more. I want this to change and so I'm trying to think how should I ...
2
votes
7answers
506 views
After how much line of code a function should be break down?
While working on existing code base, I usually come across procedures that contain Abusive use of IF and Switch statements. The procedures consist of overwhelming code, which I think require ...
3
votes
3answers
176 views
Bringing in New Architecture During Maintenance on Legacy Systems
I have been tasked with adding some new features to a legacy ASP.NET MVC2 project. The codebase is a disaster and I want to write these new features with some thought behind the implementation and not ...
