> once you've cleaned stables a dozen times spaghetti code is the red flag of incompetence and the correlation is there. Question is, where's the incompetence?

> once you've cleaned stables a dozen times spaghetti code is the red flag of incompetence and the correlation is there. Question is, where's the incompetence? Yup, like any profession, there are developers out there who just suck. But the same is true of middle and senior company management. Can you honestly say you've never cut a corner because some incompetent manager mismanaged the schedule or customer expectations and then forced you to compromise quality in order to meet an absurd date? And in any organization with that type of management, those issues are rarely isolated. Any one manager can do a little damage, but when an organization is dysfunctional, well-meaning coders on the ground may be forced to compromise code quality time and time again in order to deal with unrealistic schedules. Think of it like a professional sports team. Sometimes, yeah, the players just suck. But a bad coach or general manager can have an outsized effect on an organization. Now, I would never claim that all bad code is a product of bad management. Again, some folks just suck at their job. But speaking as a guy in middle management, I'd be willing to believe at least half of the bad code lying around in the real world is a product of an incompetent management structure. Getting back to the article, that would represent the kind of hidden incentive that would cause an outsider to assume developer incompetence, even though the reality is very much different.