1130
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 211 points 1 week ago

Yes, and so can most experienced developers. In fact unmaintainable human-written code is more often caused by organisational dysfunctions than by lack of individual competence.

[-] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 102 points 1 week ago

In my experience there’s usually a confluence of individual and institutional failures.

It usually goes like this.

  1. hotshot developers is hired at company with crappy software
  2. hotshot dev pitches a complete rewrite that will solve all issues
  3. complete rewrite is rejected
  4. hotshot dev shoehorns a new architecture and trendy dependencies into the old codebase
  5. hotshot new dev leaves
  6. software is more complex, inconsistent, and still crappy
[-] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That's one of the failure modes, good orgs would have design and review processes to stop it.

There are other classics like arbitrary deadlines, conflicting and shifting requirements and product direction, perverse incentives, etc.

I would even say that the AI craze is a result of the latter.

[-] PapstJL4U@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah, certain code developed organically (aka shifting demands). Devs know the code gets worse, but either by time or money they don't have the option to review and redo code.

[-] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Yes. But the important thing is that now disfunctional organizations have access to tools to write unmaintainable code really fast.

[-] jardee@ohpossum.ooo 4 points 1 week ago

Not in my case. I dont write spaghetti code, i write fettuchini code

[-] kindnesskills@literature.cafe 2 points 1 week ago

I want to write gnocchi code, where each little nugget is good on its own and they still blend together perfectly in the sauce. But I still end up with mashed potato-code if I don't watch myself.

[-] sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

Every bad decision in my code bases were because I didn't have enough time to do things the right way

this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
1130 points (95.0% liked)

Programmer Humor

30700 readers
1579 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS