[gabrielblack]

Blacksmith. If it was possible to go back in time, I would be a blacksmith. This is my conclusion after working several years as consultant. The last project was horrible, hundreds of thousands of lines in C++ wrote by monkeys in ten years, layers of layers of crap. When I say layers I'm not speaking about architectural layers, but geological layers, like the sedimentation that trap the skeletons of dinosaurs. They introduced control version systems 3 years ago: before they preserved all the revision as comments, into the source files ! Every ten lines of source code, twenty lines of commented old code with the description of who, when and why the code was disabled. That was the time I really desired to die. Honestly, I enjoy myself only with my stuff, rarely at work.

[sidcool]

I feel your pain. Only difference in my case was, those layers of crap (mostly Java) were written by a monkey I thought I knew very well (myself).

My experience taught me that we sometimes tend to be obsessed with code aesthetics, way beyond a healthy reverence that any code deserves. I have learnt to forgive myself of the past coding mistakes and now I try to journal them. I hope you get the strength to forgive those other developers.

[em-bee]

why not do both? like Niels Provos: https://www.wired.com/2013/02/provos/

[gabrielblack]

I'm also a maker, but this guy is just entered in my pantheon of hero. Swords ! With some kind of code can be a solution, also ! :-)

[em-bee]

he's taking a different approach when it comes to cutting the cruft in the code he is working on. :-)