First working day programmer. Where to begin?

Question

Programming

Good afternoon to you!
What I dreamed about since childhood has come true - I was hired as a programmer. I will be sawing (by myself and by outsourcing) an ancient, but very huge, corporate application. There are no other programmers in the company besides me, and I have no one to consult what and how to do. If in terms of code I am more or less calm for myself, then in everything else there are dark spots.
In this regard, I ask you to help me with advice:
1. What is the first thing you need to do / check when you come to a new job.
2. How to write project documentation.
3. What do programmers do at the very beginning of working with someone else's project.
4. How to distribute the load between yourself and a third-party organization.
Maybe some more tips for the "first working day".
I would be grateful for any information on the topic.

Answer 1

Try to make a favorable impression on those around you.
Politeness, courtesy, willingness supposedly to come to the rescue and sympathize. Be imbued with the needs and concerns of the team.
Rushing into battle, kicking, demonstrating knowledge and enthusiasm is not worth it.
Try to "get into the rhythm" of this office.
Look, listen, be quiet, "Audi, vide, sile!" no initiative, and at first it is necessary to make a fool of yourself a little, "your boyfriend" this will dull the
vigilance of the team. Try to work as slowly and as little as possible in the beginning, just in case that is exactly what is required of you.
You can justify that you need time to familiarize yourself.
Then try not to work at all, but only to simulate activity.
But the first time to engage in personal affairs is not worth it. First, create a sense of your usefulness and hard-to-replace.
The code is the tenth thing, the main thing is the relationship between people in the team.

Answer 2

1. Come to the workplace.
2. Bring a real programmer's mug with you, with a volume of at least 0.5 liters
3. Fill it with strong coffee
4. Go online
5. Share on the programmers' forums what kind of ..... you are and what you should do about it and your call will not go unanswered and supported

Answer 3

Get out of there before it's too late!
State corporation, lack of experience in independent development, ancient undocumented evil... Tough!

Answer 4

I was hired as a programmer

How did you pass the interview: who is the person who said that you are suitable?

Answer 5

Finally, my childhood dream came true - I became an astronaut. The rocket has already launched and now I am flying to orbit at high speed. Can you tell me what is the best way to start space exploration? There are no other astronauts in the rocket, so I have no one else to ask. But on the other hand, there is a cool walkie-talkie, a spacesuit and a lot of other stuff. Now I’ll get used to it and go google how and why all this is used. Wish me luck, you'll hear from me again!

Answer 6

3. What do programmers do at the very beginning of working with someone else's project. -
Setting up the IDE, installing utilities, cloning the repository. Then the project is put together. If everything starts the first time - you are very lucky :-) (or third-party libraries were not used). Then familiarity with the code. Then experiments. Change something in the program and see if the result matches your prediction. Walk the debugger through the main functions. Understand how they work. Open the database, get acquainted with its structure. What are the tables, what data is stored in them. Make a test copy of the database. Make changes. Look at result
4. How to share the load between yourself and the third party.
Depends on the third party. If there are pros sitting there, and you are a beginner, then learn from their code and take simple tasks at first. If the third party is a crowd of students and you have enough experience, then I would suggest focusing on testing their product and trying to push their code reviews.

Answer 7

There are no other programmers in the company besides me, and I have no one to consult what and how to do.
. How is the turnover? Who interviewed you? Are you sure that you will be allowed to put something on the PC? Have you seen the workplace? There Win98 and a prologue?
Retry version control systems. View diffs, logs, reverse, blaming and more. Bash (MinGW, CygWin). Grep, find through directories. Curl, wget. UML. Don't be afraid to ask for paper and draw flowcharts or only-to-you-understand parodies of the UML.

Answer 8

You need to run, because. it is impossible to work without internet. And this is the number 1 reason, even more than "I'm the only programmer with no experience".
Get started and go to interviews. Honestly tell where and how stuck. You need a teacher - an experienced programmer.
"Everyone needs experienced" is a delusion. Sometimes young animals are specially taken to sculpt for themselves. You need a couple of years to see how to work in a team correctly.

Answer 9

Get in touch with outsourcing. Ask what the program is, what tasks they currently have, what tools they use, so that you can also make changes using the version control system, if it is used, etc. etc.
I think that in essence you will do the same work as outsourcing, only you will work in the office of the company. Therefore, talk more with colleagues from outsourcing.

Answer 10

Think about how your potential employer thinks? For example, a project written by 20 programmers for 40 years and now you have come to it, but is there any certainty that you will have expertise in at least half a year on the project, and after at least a year you will be able to implement at least some solution for the project? It looks like an attempt to revive a corpse and is very frightening that you are one programmer - in general, I have an example of one company where three products have a staff of two floors of developers (about 500 people). I’m not sure that you have an adequate state corporation in general ... Better go Junior to any office if an intelligent guy immediately rises, but if not, they will teach you and rise, otherwise you will only chew snot alone ....

Answer 11

mamkaololosha Symphony

Is this some kind of state-owned company full of forty-year-old aunts and "tyzhprogrammers"? How is the turnover? Who interviewed you?

Yes, a government corporation. Interviewed by some of those specialists who are not particularly familiar with this topic. He gave me a test case to solve from several questions, and when he saw that everything was working, he said that everything was fine.
As for the turnover - based on indirect factors, I think that it is not very large there, but I have no idea how to find out for sure. You can't find reviews of this company on the internet. One single review, and that only from a candidate for some position. There is nothing negative about it either.
To put, one must suspect, only the minimum will be allowed, and then after a billion approvals. I'm afraid that it may even be forbidden to use Google.
By the way, one more questionto experienced coders - how much googling is necessary for a programmer? Is it possible that progers can "ask" to initially do without it? Or is it just my need to constantly check with StockOverflo and similar resources, and all seasoned programmers do without it?