# Can Bad Code Ruin Your Career?

DevFeed: [Can Bad Code Ruin Your Career?](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/can-bad-code-ruin-your-career-33386.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://timkellogg.me/blog/2011/12/30/can-bad-code-ruin-your-career>)

Published: 2011-12-30T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Tim Kellogg](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/tim-kellogg.md>)

Topics: [Software Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software-engineering.md>), [Refactoring](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/refactoring.md>), [structure](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/structure.md>), [unit tests](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/unit-tests.md>), [Java](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/java.md>), [bug](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/bug.md>), [Product Management](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/product-management.md>)

Tags: [bug-fixes](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/bug-fixes.md>), [code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/code.md>), [java](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/java.md>), [refactoring](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/refactoring.md>), [software-development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-development.md>), [structure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/structure.md>), [tests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tests.md>)

## AI overview

The author reflects on how working with poorly structured Java code, missing unit tests, duplicated logic, and weak development practices can consume developers' time and potentially affect their ability to recognize and produce good code. The article argues that organizational priorities and product-management decisions can contribute to these conditions.

## Source excerpt

I started writing this post over a year ago. I was working at a large company where I was stuck in a mouse wheel - always running to keep up but never getting anywhere. The code I had to work with was downright terrible. This, among other things, prodded me into looking for another job. While I was starting my job search I was pondering this post and decided to not finish it because I wasn't sure if some prospective employer would hold it against me.With that said...I just finished reading through a messy Java file. It was the usual mess of a class with a 500 line god-method (similar to the god-object) and hundreds of counts of copy and pasted code. Besides the redundant code and lack of structure the coder also used nested loops through ArrayLists when they could have used a HashSet and didn't once use generic collections, using the un-type checked versions instead. After several hours of refactoring and renaming variables I finally got to a point where I could begin fixing the bug I was after. There were absolutely no unit tests - all this code was written inline with HTML in a JSP.I spend so much time reading bad code that sometimes I wonder if I am beginning to specialize in hacks. Is it possible to read so much bad code that you forget what good code looks like? Humans are an especially adaptive species, and I think it's definitely possible that a great programmer can be forced to work in the muck so long that they forget what good code looks like.I've seen several situations where good developers produced bad code. These situations are almost always a product of an environment where features are more important than bug fixes. These companies typically invest heavily in sales and neglect IT and development costs. Or sometimes the problem is just that product management knows nothing of software development.The 5 stages of griefA recent coworker likened our job of working with brittle, badly designed code to the 5 stages of grief. While we were uneasily laughing