Not documenting is a terrible sin, especially for someone who is being paid a great deal of money and who is not going to hang around to perform the needed maintenance. However, divining what the code does and writing the documentation will certainly be a worthwhile learning experience. If you can find the original requirements documents and specifications (assuming they exist!) they should make the job easier.
As for the confidence thing - at least you can feel superior in making use of community resources and Doing The Job Right when compared to that overpaid underperforming wastrel of a consultant :-) | [reply] |
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If only ...
- ... managers were that wise
- ... organizations had documentation standards a contractor could follow
- ... organizations were ... well ... organized enough to store documentation in a sane manner
- ... requirements were clearly documented
- ... requirements didn't do a 180 in the 3 days before production
- ... contracts actually went the length agreed upon (I'm being smacked by this one ...)
- ... a lot of things
It's all well and good to say that, neilwatson. Even if I wanted to provide documentation of the code I'm producing right now, I can't! I never received specs, support, or even time to do it right. I have to lie to my management in order to write tests. In fact, the group that pays my contract isn't even the group I'm writing the code for. And, I don't have a person in the group who's going to own the code to hand over ownership. And, my manager doesn't care! (Well, maybe he cares, but he doesn't see the priority.)
My situation is normal. It's even somewhat expected.
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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. The idea is a little like C++ templates, except not quite so brain-meltingly complicated. -- TheDamian, Exegesis 6 Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.
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