Ignorance is bliss...
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I just started working with some people on what seems like an interesting project. They spend a bunch of money outsourcing the initial development to a couple of consultants. (no that is not the wtf). The people who paid really have no clue about programming, but...
Surprisingly the code is actually pretty decent.
However the owners of this project don't know the following:
- the default admin password so we can start development (it is inserted encrypted with no comments as to what it is)
- how to access the source code repository, and how to add people to it.
- how to access their production server.
- how to deploy to production
- what technology is a pre-requisite for running the web app. (just to set up a dev environment)
- no documentation on any of this. Luckily Ruby on Rails is pretty straight forward so lots of it could be guessed, but still strange to not have at least a 3-page document just outlining the basics so in case shit goes down, the owners can get their source, get to production, get someone else working on the code because all info is present.
LUCKILY the consultants are willing to give out any of this information on request, but its still pretty WTF-ey that all this information was not requested.
As a side note they already had a malicious employee delete their entire repository, and production, fortunately was restored.
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50–50 ball IMHO.
The owners have no clue, therefore the original devs. should at the very least have put all the 'essential' info. you describe into a seald envelope marked FOR THE NEXT DEVELOPERS WHO WORK ON YOUR SYSTEM and handed it to the system owners with instructions to keep it in a safe until the next time they needed someone to work on their software.
I don't really think you could expect the system owners to have known that they should have ASKED for that stuff in the first place.
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Until that last part, I thought you were talking about the job I'm leaving! Although I guess I should document it.. even though the company is run by crooks and thieves and they should be run out of business.
