THE CODE ISSUE 15

Duda Owner IONOS • July 20, 2015

Here is another one of my favorite quotes from the special double issue of Bloomberg Businessweek on computer coding. This one shows some of the frustrations, uncertainties, and ambiguities that coders face as they strive to support the enterprise (Paul Ford, “The Code Issue”, 6/15/15–6/28/15, p. 64):

“ It’s often better to just keep working and shipping, even if the code starts to look ugly, even if there are nominally better solutions, even as the technical debt accrues around you, because in a few years everything will change. Maybe you’ll get promoted and the new manager will have the will and motive to tear up everything you did, cursing, and start again (perhaps using a new language) with the goal of making something much simpler. Or the entire industry will spasm, and everything you’ve done will need to be thrown away and rebuilt along new lines anyway. (From desktop to Web, from Web to mobile, from mobile to . . . quantum? Who knows. But there’s always something.) ”

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