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@Voxera i too have this problem with a couple of legacy code basis.
Rewrite to make testable, well more to make usable by a dev and break up 1000's of lines of code, or trust it works, seeing as its worked as intended for years.
Business's won't see the benefit in a rewrite just for the sake of sanity. -
Testing is a powerful tool that helps building cleaner code with less dependencies. I am sure there are great, experienced devs out there that can do that by default. Just put out wonderful, readable code that is working from scratch without tests.
But frankly, my bet is they are less than 1 in a million. I do not know your senior, but from the chances given I wouldn't bet he is one of those prodigies.
I wish you best of luck trying to turn his opinion around. -
The argument that it's Not worthwhile to rewrite Lots of legacy Code die testing is valid to a certain degree. But this doesn't mean New Features can't be tested! Tell him to at least write tests for new features as this will increase stability when working on top of legacy code.
From Business perspective: the risc of "wasting time" and therefore money with a rewrite is way Higher than the risk of potential future problems with an untestable Code base. Depends on the Type of Project though -
@don-rager Absolutely, and we've been down that road. I think the main issue is he retires in a few years and doesn't want to learn anything new - even if that new thing would bear fruit and wouldn't be much to learn outside of his primary development. Biding my time, I suppose.
when your code is a mess but everything work out in the end
When you keep getting +1s on a rant you posted a month ago.
Go big or go home.
I value our most senior developer. His code is certainly clean and structured. He is the ultimate at KISS. However he's not a fan of testing and instead just says, well, did it compile? No matter how much I show him how great testing is, he comes back with how it's pretty unnecessary. Somehow, in the deep dark parts of the web, he finds articles that comply with his standing. I'm okay with him not making tests, I do it myself. But then when working extending or implementing his code, many of my parts are untestable because the parents are. Oye.
rant