Ask HN: Company Failed from Poor Code?

[lfmunoz4]

Have you been at a company that failed from poor code quality?

We all know the importance of code quality but it is very difficult to quantify. Many companies have average code quality and seem to do fine. To understand this better please share your experience when working with poor code quality and what was the breaking point.

Also share what language and technologies were used and if managers were forcing language choices or making bad decisions. Also if from experience give your opinion if certain technology leads to poor quality.

For example I think JavaScript leads to bad code quality. Mangers will want to use JavaScript because they think it is faster to write and can find more qualified candidates. They don't realize that good programmers should be able to write code in any language and that code writing efficiency is significantly less important than code reading efficiency.

[gibbitz]

I agree with the previous post here. In general garbage code hasn't broken a company I've worked for either.

A couple of cents I'd throw in, though:

Security holes are a marker of poor quality code and depending on the business sector that can break a business (healthcare, net security, VPN etc.). I don't have a clear case in mind, but it seems plausible.

JavaScript is fine as a language, the problem is the proficiency and understanding developers writing it have. I've seen terrible .NET and Java code that is just as bad as any JavaScript code I've encountered and the common denominator has always been outsourcing. Having worked for a consultancy in the past, I know they pass iOS developers as React Developers to get contracts and vice-versa. You can bet the code they write isn't the best.

If it helps, this doesn't end at software. It happens in all sectors due to the pull of profits. Remember the Yugo?

[solardev]

> Security holes are a marker of poor quality code and depending on the business sector that can break a business (healthcare, net security, VPN etc.). I don't have a clear case in mind, but it seems plausible.

Even then, I doubt it really matters. Lastpass is still around, and their whole business is security. RSA too. Microsoft is still around. Facebook had major breaches in the early days. Uber too. The credit monitoring bureaus get hacked and leak all your data, and that really happens is a tiny fine and you get like 3 months of free credit monitoring.

Shitty code is so common, and modern computers and networks are so complicated, that every big company gets hacked and zero-dayed and social engineered all the time now, and they pay some fine and send a few emails and then it's business as usual.

Everyone says they take security super seriously, but I can't think of a single company that really suffered from a breach...

[solardev]

Every company I've ever worked with (as a web dev) has had shitty code somewhere, usually huge gobs of it, but as far as I can tell it's never been a business make-or-breaker. It all gets refactored or completely rewritten every few years anyway, or with every new team lead or whatever. I'd say poor code quality is the overwhelming reality in small-med businesses, especially those that aren't directly in tech (i.e. not a SaaS) but still need web code for whatever reason.

It's especially bad in web. Not just Javascript, but React and its 30 state management libraries and routing frameworks, most abandoned years ago, that get coupled with npm libs from last decade and terrible patterns invented by twenty different outsourced bootcamp devs.

Javascript isn't easier to write (IMHO), but it DOES have a shit ton of employable candidates. People choose React not because it's the best, but because React is the new Wordpress and it's super easy to hire for compared to any other library, framework, or even language.

Programming (at least web dev) isn't the art it used to be. It's just another trade skill now, and companies hire commodity coders at bargain-basement prices... it's only going to get worse as more and more of it gets combined with AI generated half-working code.

Is anyone going to care? I really doubt it, as long as it lowers overall costs (and it will). Almost every company is going to choose shitty, mostly-working code if it's 2x or 3x cheaper than perfect code.