I have been working recently on a project I started about 2 years ago, and which has subsequently been through several sets of hands.
The project involves recreating the functionality of a visual basic application as a web app in ruby on rails.
The original application was written by a non-coder, slowly and painfully, and with no regard to good design practices.
When I started it, I rationalised the database format to remove duplication of information and make it much more normalised.
Since then, ‘other hands’ had the job of writing code to bring over the historic information from the vb system to allow us continuity. Now, when they did it, did they take time to appreciate the nicely denormalised database structure, the power and elegance of the code supporting this new db layout and code to the new layout?
OR! did they denormalise a load of the tables taking them closer to what the other application does? and in so doing require loads of additional standing data tables, that had been replaced by class bourn settings?
Yes, the latter, and now, I have been tasked with setting up a new instance, and I don’t have what should be in those other tables.
I could cry, I really could.