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by rip747 4546 days ago
"I'm not proud of this legacy code,"

"This cron has been keeping ffmpeg in check for over 6+ years in a production environment at this point... it processes thousands of videos a day using a custom queuing and reviewing system."

why do we programmers always feel we need to apologize for something that we did quickly, but has been running without incident for a number of years.

take a bow my friend. that was an awesome patch you came up with all those years ago.
2 comments
burntsushi 4546 days ago
> why do we programmers always feel we need to apologize for something that we did quickly

Because if we don't, our programming brethren will assume that we thought the fix was correct and optimal. And we'll get bashed for it.

Haven't you ever heard of the quip (summarized): "The quickest way to get help from a technical crowd is to claim what you're doing is correct. People will bend over backwards to prove you wrong."

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MBCook 4546 days ago
> why do we programmers always feel we need to apologize for something that we did quickly, but has been running without incident for a number of years.

The script is only treating the symptom, not the problem.

It would be better to detect the files before they waste an hour of time, so you could tell the user instead of having them silently disappear. Maybe there is something you could do to fix the files. The programmer part of me says there is a real fix that needs writing.

It's obviously a great script if it's worked that long. Who knows how long it would take to track down and fix the bug(s) causing the issue. If they haven't needed to fix the bug in all these years just writing that script was obviously a good decision.

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zaroth 4546 days ago
> If they haven't needed to fix the bug in all these years just writing that script was obviously a good decision.

Exactly this. There are an unbounded number of bugs which will cause this single symptom. I think detecting the symptom is exactly the right solution.

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kbenson 4546 days ago
In theory. In reality, after treating one or two causes, the occurrence rate may fall to once a month or year.

I agree that mitigating the problem is a good first step though.

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