Hello there! Sloan, DEV Moderator and resident mascot, here. We've got a new one in the inbox, let's check it out. 🦥
Welcome to another installment of Sloan's Inbox, your go-to place for sharing advice and observations. Whether it's career development, office politics, industry trends, or improving technical skills, we've got you covered. Let's continue our journey of learning and growth together.
As always, I'm here to dive into your questions, comments, and thoughts. So, let's get to it!
Today's question is:
I'm a new developer and have the opportunity to start my first real dev career. The thing is, I spoke to a member of the organization and they let me know that they have a large legacy codebase. I'm curious if this means I'm likely to be working with old, outdated technologies or if there's a lack of documentation or something else entirely. If it is the former and I'm meant to be working with outdated tech, will this put me in a bad spot for the future?
Share your thoughts and lets help a fellow DEV member out! Remember to keep kind and stay classy. 💚
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Top comments (7)
Honestly, I think you learn more.
Maybe it's something you don't want to be stuck with for your whole career, but for an experience, I think it's worth it.
I agree, you work a lot of soft skills like "patience", "resilience" haha but it's cool to see your own evolution! For example, take a structure that you look at the code and think: What was I thinking when I did that?! or What was the person thinking when they did that?!
But it's worth it and it's quite challenging!
Also it's a pretty safe career plan if you happen to like doing that.
It's not like there is a fierce competition of developers eager to maintain legacy code
Then that will a big NO to the question "Will working with legacy code hold me back?"
Three main points:
A legacy codebase shouldn't be a severe detriment to your career, and it's a good place to get some experience under your belt. Plus, there are some opportunities to command niche freelancing rates with legacy technology expertise.
The reality is most established companies will have a lot of legacy code to navigate.
It does make development harder, because often legacy code isn't tested well or has been changed strangely.
The things that will help you are
Also just to say, because another company is a start-up or greenfield, that doesn't mean the code will be well designed.
We're always writing tomorrow's legacy code, just doing the best we can with what we know at the time!