Yup, 2001. That was the year. 😂
Sorry you were ultimately unable to write your own code the way you wanted to. Hopefully, the next chapter will bring you happiness.

I have written tests for every line of code since 2001 and I have always sought to give my users (Hello, Claire!) what they want but — I have had free rein to write my code how I want since forever. In fact, that’s one of the reasons for me leaving my previous job.

(it’s not the only reason but it’s the one that made me start to pack my bags)

To be fair, despite the constraints of my work, I have always had a free hand to engineer and design the code how I wanted – there are user requirements but the implementation has always been up to me. 😁

Hi Claire ATX,
I know Ragged Clown has his own experiences, but I really wanted to answer your question as I am a software engineer too! Coding in the eighties and nineties was definitely full of cowboys and cowgirls. 🙂 I am sure it is still like that in plenty of places, but I have mostly worked in large organisations and (now) every line of code you write is peer-reviewed before it can be committed and it must have tests which check the expected behaviour, the failure cases, the different flows through the code, and the edge cases. Nor would you be able to just rewrite bits as there are project plans for regular releases where you have items of work with expected timescales. It’s still fun, but much more formal in my world than Ragged Clown’s though – I expect he has more interesting stories!

It was for me!
(I can’t speak for anyone else — but maybe someone else will chime in…)

A lot of people complain about repetition and about having to build what other people tell them to build I never had those constraints.

Is the world of coding much the same as you described in this post?

Thank you! I am enjoying them too 😎

And I did choose a beautiful wife!