A customer asked me to fix their website after they tried to code it themselves

They sent over a folder of files named things like 'final.html' and 'finalfinal.html'. The homepage was just a giant, uncentered picture of their dog. Has anyone else had to untangle a mess like this, and how do you even start quoting a job that's already broken?

4 comments

4 Comments

robin8962mo ago

Oh man, that's a classic. I can picture the dog picture taking up the whole screen now. Starting a quote? I'd just charge by the hour because who knows what other surprises are in those finalfinal files. Honestly feels like you're getting paid to be an archaeologist digging through their bad choices.

anthonyrivera28d ago

Wait, didn't someone write a whole article about how rewrites almost always fail? Kevinw94 is right about the hidden fixes in old code. I tried a partial rewrite once and missed a weird time zone rule buried in a comment, broke everything for users in Arizona.

pat_harris2mo ago

Honestly, I'd just quote to rebuild it from scratch.

kevinw942mo ago

Whoa, hold on. Rebuilding from scratch is a massive overreaction for a lot of problems. That old code might have years of bug fixes and edge cases you don't even know about. I've seen teams spend six months on a rewrite only to end up with the same bugs and a ton of new ones. Sometimes you just need to fix the broken part, not burn the whole house down.