Should we ever put up with hacking bad code to make it work for right now? Is there such a thing as a temporary solution? Every so often I fight this mentality at work to just patch the code and make it work for right now. The “we need this yesterday” solution without ever thinking about the future consequences of our actions.
As much as I fight against, sometimes I have to do it. I hate, hate, hate hacking something up. I preach the fact that there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. I know it’s going to come back to bite me in the ass. The very second a change is wanted it will.
Why do I hate patching the code? I hate it because the blame will later get placed on me for bugs in the software due to design decisions out of my control. I guess I wouldn’t mind making the quick patch as much if later, when bugs are introduced because the code is so very unmaintainable and bugs are introduced with ease, they would take the blame for the issues. But no, it’s now my job to stay late and work harder for shitty decisions made by someone else who was unwilling to take advice, or forced the issue of not worrying about maintenance. God knows I hate more work, tedious work at that, for something that could have been avoided. Should have been avoided, was foreseen and cautions ignored.
You know the kind of code I’m talking about. The kind where you need intimate knowledge of every working part because all the code is so tightly coupled that making one modification means accounting for it in 15 different places or it will break. The kind where we decide that writing out javascript inside a string, passing it into a function, later to eval it is a good thing. See example -> http://club.cmstheme.com/demo100/Interface/templates/Interface/effects.php
So back to the original question. Should we hack it up? I say no. It will come back to bite you in the ass. Almost no one that is asking you to do it understands the implications. They don’t understand that writing bad code is a future of longer development times and is a ticking time bomb. But they will likely blame you when it does break. Of course there will be times when this is unavoidable, but make the best of it and rewrite small sections at a time. Or make the change, but make sure the next time you touch the code that it is understood that re-factoring time is mandatory.

As requested, I’ve implemented a category search filter for hellaphone. Neither the keyword, nor the category is required, but both will filter the results. It’s up in github

search with category

New release of hellaphone. I scrapped the old code, got rid of cakephp, rolled a lighter, custom framework. Got rid of the installation troublesome mod_rewrite dependancy that cakephp required. I may even end up with a super light MVC after it’s all done. Grab a copy at Github here.

Isn’t it funny how everyone has a good idea for a website/service that will make money?

Does this ever happen to you?

Every now and then one of my friends or colleagues gives me a call with a new idea for a website or service to offer. They call with excitement and a tone of voice that sounds like they believe they’ll be rich soon. They never do any due diligence to see if the same exact service or niche is already being filled. Even when their idea is unique that seems to be all they want to do, tell me the idea. Tell me the idea and collect some sort of paycheck for basically doing nothing but talking to me like a lush would to a buddy during a long night out.

It’s a real shame too, some of these ideas are genuinely good. Unfortunately, I only have so much time. I usually require them to do some leg work.

• Something like research what other services are out there that compete or are related. Make a list. 
• Define an initial feature set.
• Brainstorm our business model.
• Define costs
• Brainstorm marketing ideas

Most people never get past step one. This weeds out the majority. Some will actually define a feature set, but then tend to drop off past the business model. Defining costs almost always loses everyone else.

I may start giving quotes to these people with the ideas, but that would require more questions that they probably wouldn’t ever get back to me on.

HellaPhone 

I currently use hellanzb for all of my usenet downloads. It’s much simpler than anything I have used before and is a simple install. Very simple if you are on a Debian (Ubuntu), or Darwin System (Mac OS X).I developed this interface for my own personal use and nothing more. That being said, there is very little error checking if any, and even less error reporting in the interface. I planned on releasing this when it is more complete, but I have not had the time to spend on it due to other projects that put food on my table. The app does work pretty well for a quick newzbin search and download to your existing hellanzb install. It just doesn’t monitor the downloads or report an error if the download doesn’t initiate. I planned on rectifying that at some future date.The requirements are:

•  php5
• cakephp 1.2.x
• allow_url_open – (maybe, I may have changed it to curl, can’t remember, don’t care)
• hellanzb install with allowed network access
• newzbin account

If enough people show interest I may make time to work on it some more. Please, if you are interested in upgrading or continuing work on this project, Leave it in the comments. And of course donations are always welcome. Download from the HellaPhone page  Some screenshots