Ask Slashdot: How To Convince a Team To Write Good Code?

An anonymous reader writes "I am part of engineering team that maintains a very important component in our company. Our code quality and general engineering quality focus has been very weak: we have frequent buggy releases, our latencies are shooting up, our test coverage is nearly non-existent, and it is impossible for a newcomer in our team to get up to speed and be productive in less than a month due to unnecessary complexity. A group of 2-3 of us want to change that, and we know what needs to change technically — the better code review and release processes, better build tools, etc. But despite that, the quality of our code and design continues to suffer, and poor code continues to get released in the name of keeping the scheduled release date (product guys don't like to wait). We feel that if the right thing is done every time, we would can eliminate our issues and still release at the same pace. How do we effect the social change necessary to convince them of what is better and encourage them to take the effort to do it?"

Comments

Re:Sooo..

[DragonTHC]

ID software.

Don't say it's impossible to replace one of your developers. It's so very easy to replace one or all. There are 1,000 Chinese or Indian developers writing better code for pennies who would jump at the chance to have your job, and do it better and cheaper. But if you've given your developers all the help, proper tool sets, and support, and they still produce lousy code, it's time to find new developers.

Depending on how many you have, get rid of them one at a time. Don't hire a new one until at least two are gone. Start with a middle of the road guy, who is probably good, but is lazy. Save the one with the most potential for last, and hopefully you won't have to fire him.