Have you ever inherited a really shitty code base and what did you do about it?

Yes, several times. I rewrote it in its entirety every time.

I'm actually contemplating rewriting it from scratch cause what I've inherited doesn't even run.

The bits and pieces that I can I rewrite them from scratch, the others I just use adapters/bridges to the older API

Worked on top of the shitty codebase and architecture and made it less shitty one step at a time, but never really making it not shitty because that's most likely impossible 😅

Try not to cry.
Cry a lot.

Yes. All the time 😢
You focus on a single piece of functionality or feature and rewrite it.

Slowly you move across the entire project and get it to a point you feel remotely proud off. It’s along journey and no one will respect it as nothing has changed “technically” but you will feel a great sense of achievement at the end of it.

@M1sf3t 🤣. But I'm slightly nervous since it is my first job as a junior dev on this start up and it looks like I'll be the only one working with the code base.

You gradually rewrite it, one piece of functionality at a time, adding unit tests as you go. You continue this until you move onto another project. Then a new dev takes over, decides the entire code base is shit, and starts rewriting your rewrites. And so it goes on, forever and ever.

@M1sf3t @Robinha circle of life eh

Being a new dev, I've been worried I'm going to be leaving garbage code behind.

We don't do code reviews. I've asked for them. Multiple times. Nobody has the time apparently. More fun to watch stuff break and then slowly turn to the author (>> me <<), I guess.

Got the same shit over here, rewriting every module after module as soon as I have to touch them. Apparently there's no other way since the product is already in production and rewriting everything at once would easily break a lot

do some bullshit refactor, abandon it halfway through? start another refactor, leave it worse than how you received it
also cry, I adhere to the crying