In this post, I demonstrate how to retrofit automated tests onto an untested legacy library.

This is part two of a three-part series about how I resurrected ingredient-phrase-tagger, a library that uses machine learning to parse cooking ingredients (e.g., “2 cups milk”) into structured data. Read part one for the full context, but the short version is that I discovered an abandoned library and brought it back to life so that it could power my SaaS business:

When I arrived on the scene, it wasn’t a pretty sight.

I saw formerly active, cheerful Python classes in a sorry state of atrophy, having gone years without exercise. Functions at all levels of abstraction were crammed together inhumanely under the label utils. I tried to read the UI code but found something obstructing it. After a closer look, I was overcome with nausea. The obstructions in the view layer were, in fact, gory chunks of business logic.

Prior to February 2019, I published all my retrospectives on Indie Hackers:

• Zestful Month 4: Shipping Too Late

I worked as a software engineer for Google from 2014 to 2018. On February 1st, I quit my job and formed my own single-person software company.

That was four months ago, so I thought I’d share an update on how things are going.

What’s it like not having a job?

That’s the most common question people ask. What’s it like?

For the first few days, I kept thinking, “Woohoo! I’m free!” It was like starting a long-awaited vacation and knowing that it could potentially last forever.

The response to yesterday’s post about leaving Google has been unexpected and overwhelming.

It was extremely gratifying to hear that my story resonated with so many people. Hundreds of readers from a variety of industries all across the globe have written me to tell me how they related to my experience. I’ve never written anything before that’s generated such a strong a response.

At the same time, it’s unfortunate to hear how widespread this problem is. I hope that further conversation about the topic drives companies to improve their promotion systems so that fewer employees get caught in these career traps.