Jimmy Miller

Yeah, I wish I had finished this write-up. I haven't actually done much Ruby, although I did work at Shopify on YJIT, the Ruby JIT compiler, for a little bit before getting laid off, sadly. It happens. But the one Ruby code base I worked in, there was just this little bit of super clever metaprogramming, which, of course, Ruby loves. Lots of people in Ruby love their metaprogramming.

Yeah, I wish I had finished this write-up. I haven't actually done much Ruby, although I did work at Shopify on YJIT, the Ruby JIT compiler, for a little bit before getting laid off, sadly. It happens. But the one Ruby code base I worked in, there was just this little bit of super clever metaprogramming, which, of course, Ruby loves. Lots of people in Ruby love their metaprogramming.

And I could never find, the reason I never wrote it up is I could never find a non-circular starting point. Every time I would want to explain something, I would have to, because the code meta-looped on itself every single time. There you go. See, that's the problem.

And I could never find, the reason I never wrote it up is I could never find a non-circular starting point. Every time I would want to explain something, I would have to, because the code meta-looped on itself every single time. There you go. See, that's the problem.

I think this is, not to self-promote or whatever, but this is one of the reasons that I really enjoy the Future of Coding podcast. Because I think there's a lot of code out there that people aren't happy with, and I don't think we talk about it. In some ways, I think looking at this legacy code base is the same thing for me as looking at the shiny new stuff.

I think this is, not to self-promote or whatever, but this is one of the reasons that I really enjoy the Future of Coding podcast. Because I think there's a lot of code out there that people aren't happy with, and I don't think we talk about it. In some ways, I think looking at this legacy code base is the same thing for me as looking at the shiny new stuff.

I think oftentimes we don't appreciate code for what it is. We don't look at what's come before. We kind of look at legacy systems like they're all bad, and there's nothing good to gain from them. I've seen a bunch of blog posts talking about crazy code, but one of the things I wanted to do in this article was talk about crazy code, but in an endearing way. I loved this crazy code.

I think oftentimes we don't appreciate code for what it is. We don't look at what's come before. We kind of look at legacy systems like they're all bad, and there's nothing good to gain from them. I've seen a bunch of blog posts talking about crazy code, but one of the things I wanted to do in this article was talk about crazy code, but in an endearing way. I loved this crazy code.

I just love code. I think no matter how bad it is, it's one of those things that... Code is a medium to put information down that like is unlike writing. I, you know, you, you can get a sense from this application, like from my blog post, what writing code in this code base was like, but like you said, like go and do it for a month. It's fun. It's interesting.

I just love code. I think no matter how bad it is, it's one of those things that... Code is a medium to put information down that like is unlike writing. I, you know, you, you can get a sense from this application, like from my blog post, what writing code in this code base was like, but like you said, like go and do it for a month. It's fun. It's interesting.

And I think there's so much more code out there and so many different ways of writing code that we just haven't really unlocked yet that I, you know, I want to see us do more of.

And I think there's so much more code out there and so many different ways of writing code that we just haven't really unlocked yet that I, you know, I want to see us do more of.

Yeah, Peter Nauer of Backus Nauer Forum, so BNF. Peter Nauer actually has this great paper called Programming as Theory Building. And one of the things in there that I think is really interesting is he talks about code bases dying. And by that, he doesn't mean that the code isn't running anymore or no one makes changes on it.

Yeah, Peter Nauer of Backus Nauer Forum, so BNF. Peter Nauer actually has this great paper called Programming as Theory Building. And one of the things in there that I think is really interesting is he talks about code bases dying. And by that, he doesn't mean that the code isn't running anymore or no one makes changes on it.

He means that the people who knew the original context of the code base are no longer there. They're no longer working on it. And so everyone else that is having to make changes to this code base is working on a dead code base that's no longer alive because they've completely lost the theory of the code base. Why is this here? Why put these lines...

He means that the people who knew the original context of the code base are no longer there. They're no longer working on it. And so everyone else that is having to make changes to this code base is working on a dead code base that's no longer alive because they've completely lost the theory of the code base. Why is this here? Why put these lines...

in the way that they are, how do I make these kinds of changes? And he argues in there that you can't revitalize a dead code base. Once a code base dies, you can create a new theory about the code base, but it's impossible to ever recover the original one. And I feel like I've worked a lot on dead code bases where the people who knew that context once

in the way that they are, how do I make these kinds of changes? And he argues in there that you can't revitalize a dead code base. Once a code base dies, you can create a new theory about the code base, but it's impossible to ever recover the original one. And I feel like I've worked a lot on dead code bases where the people who knew that context once

are long gone, don't work at the company anymore. And in some ways, this code base wasn't dead because of Munch. Because Munch could always provide that little bit of context, breathe some life back into it. And had Munch not been there, the code base would have been completely dead. No one would have had any idea what was going on.

are long gone, don't work at the company anymore. And in some ways, this code base wasn't dead because of Munch. Because Munch could always provide that little bit of context, breathe some life back into it. And had Munch not been there, the code base would have been completely dead. No one would have had any idea what was going on.