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melbolt · Apr 21st, 2008, 5:50 PM

I don't know if many of you have ever been in this situation, but recently I was thrown into this and I'm still trying to figure out what to do.

Here's my problem:
At work, for the first time we were contracted to continue work on software that someone else had initially developed, this is a new experience for me, prior to this all software I had worked on was created in house, from scratch.

Anyways, the problem is such, the company that initially built this thing did so in a manner of coding which I feel is very unsupportable, unchangeable, lots of hardcoded things everywhere, bad database design, etc, etc, etc.

Now the management at my company don't understand all this, they just see the end product running and think, "oh its such a great product" and give us developers very limited time to make additions/changes. which means, we can't fix anything completely.

The previous company also apparently had something against microsoft, instead of using pre-built controls they re-implemented thousands and thousands of lines of code to make their own controls, anything but minor changes to the way it already works is quite a chore.

now to the advice gathering questions:

-do i continue to follow the standards set by the original makers (use their pre-built controls rather than stuff like ajax toolkit which currently is not used at all, would it be bad to add this just for one new page, even though all the old pages will remain under the original implementation due to the face noone will pay to change them?) or do i introduce new ways which i feel are better but then throws off the standard processes the rest of the app follows?

so i guess the real question is:
- do i just keep adding the the madness that already exists or do i break the standards, except then the app would have 2 different ways of doing things.

-what other type of damage control can i possibly do since noone will pay for modifying something that already works?

share your experiences of stuff like this with me, what did you do? how did you handle it?

thanks guys

Apr 21st, 2008, 5:50 PM	#1
melbolt Hobbyist Programmer Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: PA, USA Posts: 237 Rep Power: 4	Need some advice I don't know if many of you have ever been in this situation, but recently I was thrown into this and I'm still trying to figure out what to do. Here's my problem: At work, for the first time we were contracted to continue work on software that someone else had initially developed, this is a new experience for me, prior to this all software I had worked on was created in house, from scratch. Anyways, the problem is such, the company that initially built this thing did so in a manner of coding which I feel is very unsupportable, unchangeable, lots of hardcoded things everywhere, bad database design, etc, etc, etc. Now the management at my company don't understand all this, they just see the end product running and think, "oh its such a great product" and give us developers very limited time to make additions/changes. which means, we can't fix anything completely. The previous company also apparently had something against microsoft, instead of using pre-built controls they re-implemented thousands and thousands of lines of code to make their own controls, anything but minor changes to the way it already works is quite a chore. now to the advice gathering questions: -do i continue to follow the standards set by the original makers (use their pre-built controls rather than stuff like ajax toolkit which currently is not used at all, would it be bad to add this just for one new page, even though all the old pages will remain under the original implementation due to the face noone will pay to change them?) or do i introduce new ways which i feel are better but then throws off the standard processes the rest of the app follows? so i guess the real question is: - do i just keep adding the the madness that already exists or do i break the standards, except then the app would have 2 different ways of doing things. -what other type of damage control can i possibly do since noone will pay for modifying something that already works? share your experiences of stuff like this with me, what did you do? how did you handle it? thanks guys __________________ I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. -Mark Twain- Xbox live gamertag: melbolt