Object-Oriented Web Consulting

[pl12987]

I'm a web developer who now works mostly short-term contract jobs. For most of my career, I have built or updated sites that are far short of object-oriented methodology - in other words, a lot of hard-coded SQL queries, actions, etc. My biggest problem was somebody else's sloppy spaghetti code. But now I have a new problem as we all become more and more object-oriented.

Now, if I have to work on a super-efficient site somebody else built, the templates will not show me anything except a bunch of includes, instantiations of objects, etc. So I need to really see documentation - what all the objects are, how they operate with each other, etc. in order to answer the question of "What happens when I click this button?"

That's fine if good docs exist, like Fusedocs, or you are part of the team. But what if you are not? What if you get tossed into somebody else's site and told - he's not here anymore, figure it out. I feel like Sherlock Holmes hunting down files! I'm wondering if others have any experience with this, or tips to share, etc.

Jeff

 

[Thadeus]

The only tip is to build in enough discovery time if documentation is not available. I have had this happen to me on more than a few occasions.
If you are not allotted the additional time for discovery, then you will also know why the code was thrown together poorly in the first place: Company isn't willing to fund solutions, only first-aid. It is a horribly short-sighted, but very pervasive practice.

~Thadeus

 

[jrbarnett]

The only advice I can give you is to put debugging code in, then fix the original code or add comments when you figure out a particular section.

In fact, one of my most challenging assignments at uni was to work out how a program that a lecturer worked, with variables "x, y, z," and functions "f1, f2, f3, f4" etc, and even with 5 years experience in the programming language at the time, still took a good while to figure it out. I do know that some students weren't able to work it out fully.
It was a wonderful excercise in why good documentation and naming conventions were essential, and this was not a particularly complex program.

John

 

[lionelhill]

... and there was me thinking the object orientated world was supposed to alleviate these problems.

 

[VBAjedi]

Well, it does not eliminate the need for good documentation processes, but it does alleviate several problems. In situations like this, at least you only have to figure out an object once! (Assuming YOU are smart enough to document it!)

VBAjedi