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The nice thing about software projects is that they're easily replaceable. They can be treated as any other business asset in that you can hire a shop to develo

The nice thing about software projects is that they're easily replaceable. They can be treated as any other business asset in that you can hire a shop to develop them or do it in-house. So long as you have enough business eyes on the process then it works. Expensive, but it works. Businesses are used to expensive. The real value of good code is way, way less than developers would like to believe. This is coming from someone who is damn near a perfectionist about code. I have to constantly check myself and ask whether whatever I'm demanding we spend time and effort on is really worth it from a business perspective. Occasionally it is, most of the time it's not. If coding wasn't the thing I could make the most money with at this point in time, I'd do something else and code free software as a hobby. At least free software really benefits from great code practice.

the_cat_kittles 10y ago
as a general rule, i think the quality of the code matters more as more things depend on it, so i think you need to temper your statement a bit- the value of good code depends greatly on what its being used for.
flukus 10y ago
I've never seen management buy in for a rewrite, especially when the code is so bad that the company starts circling the drain. The only time I've seen it is when there's been a fundamental technology shift, like from VB6/C++ to java/.net. Network effects also make it hard. Sometimes you can't upgrade X because A, B and C feed into it and D, E and F feed out of it and they're all tightly coupled (another thing that's even worse with less skilled programmers). Replacing a single component can mean rewriting the software stack of the whole company. > If coding wasn't the thing I could make the most money with at this point in time, I'd do something else and code free software as a hobby. At least free software really benefits from great code practice. Completely agree here. The money is the only thing keeping me in the industry, if that went away I'd do something much more blue collar.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  Sometimes I wonder if the money is the only thing that keeps me coding. It seems too hard to do well otherwise.
braveo 10y ago
> The real value of good code is way, way less than developers would like to believe Soooo much this. But it's also important to note the difference between code and system design. The vast majority of code that's written is solving problems where system design doesn't tend to make a huge amount of difference. It's only when you get to a certain scale and/or in certain domains that the system design starts to matter, and even there, the code itself is of little import.
- collyw 10y ago
  Then with shit code and even more for shit system design you just spend far longer maintaining the technical debt rather than adding genuine value. Every feature takes 4 times longer to implement because of it. It costs more, and ships later. And there are always bugs to fix. Its obvious to anyone capable of writing decent code that it does have value.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    > Its obvious to anyone capable of writing decent code that it does have value. Business users are the ones that have to make the value decisions, and they can't write any code, much less decent code.
    - flukus 10y ago
      And they are oblivious to the costs incurred by shit code.
  - braveo 10y ago
    "shit code" is in the vast minority of code written, most of it ranges from merely crappy to so beautiful you'd auction off your own mother just to bask in its presence a little longer The reason architecture starts mattering is because you can do things like put that "shit code" behind an interface/microservice/whathaveyou and then the rest of the system just doesn't care. This is why code itself isn't particularly valuable in the way you seem to be implying. It isn't without value, but while software is valuable, it's rare for specific code to be where that value is at.

the_cat_kittles 10y ago

as a general rule, i think the quality of the code matters more as more things depend on it, so i think you need to temper your statement a bit- the value of good code depends greatly on what its being used for.

flukus 10y ago

I've never seen management buy in for a rewrite, especially when the code is so bad that the company starts circling the drain. The only time I've seen it is when there's been a fundamental technology shift, like from VB6/C++ to java/.net. Network effects also make it hard. Sometimes you can't upgrade X because A, B and C feed into it and D, E and F feed out of it and they're all tightly coupled (another thing that's even worse with less skilled programmers). Replacing a single component can mean rewriting the software stack of the whole company. > If coding wasn't the thing I could make the most money with at this point in time, I'd do something else and code free software as a hobby. At least free software really benefits from great code practice. Completely agree here. The money is the only thing keeping me in the industry, if that went away I'd do something much more blue collar.

vinceguidry 10y ago
Sometimes I wonder if the money is the only thing that keeps me coding. It seems too hard to do well otherwise.

braveo 10y ago

> The real value of good code is way, way less than developers would like to believe Soooo much this. But it's also important to note the difference between code and system design. The vast majority of code that's written is solving problems where system design doesn't tend to make a huge amount of difference. It's only when you get to a certain scale and/or in certain domains that the system design starts to matter, and even there, the code itself is of little import.

collyw 10y ago
Then with shit code and even more for shit system design you just spend far longer maintaining the technical debt rather than adding genuine value. Every feature takes 4 times longer to implement because of it. It costs more, and ships later. And there are always bugs to fix. Its obvious to anyone capable of writing decent code that it does have value.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  > Its obvious to anyone capable of writing decent code that it does have value. Business users are the ones that have to make the value decisions, and they can't write any code, much less decent code.
  - flukus 10y ago
    And they are oblivious to the costs incurred by shit code.
- braveo 10y ago
  "shit code" is in the vast minority of code written, most of it ranges from merely crappy to so beautiful you'd auction off your own mother just to bask in its presence a little longer The reason architecture starts mattering is because you can do things like put that "shit code" behind an interface/microservice/whathaveyou and then the rest of the system just doesn't care. This is why code itself isn't particularly valuable in the way you seem to be implying. It isn't without value, but while software is valuable, it's rare for specific code to be where that value is at.