I've hit this situation a few times in the past couple of years: Work done from 2000-2005... someone emails me and says "hey, this isn't working now". In all

I've hit this situation a few times in the past couple of years: Work done from 2000-2005... someone emails me and says "hey, this isn't working now". In all 3 cases, I was flummoxed that these systems were still in use, and had been for years. There was a big mixture of shame and pride. Shame - code wasn't as good as it could have been, although I do remember why some corners were cut (time/budget usually, although "lack of knowledge" hit now and then), but it was also early styling of MVC - things were fairly separated, easy to locate where changes should be made, etc. These were all PHP4 projects, and after upgrades to PHP 5.5 or 5.6 (or other server changes) something wasn't working. That this code worked for ... 12-14 years without being touched was... again, both a bit scary, but also a decent point of pride. I'm not sure you can really truly appreciate that sort of "man, this code might be functioning for a LONG time - like, a decade or more" feeling when you're, say, 23. You simply don't have the frame of reference. Not saying you can't write good, solid, dependable, future-proof systems at 23, but I don't think it should be a given, either. EDIT: Put another way, having to deal with your own code from 10+ years ago is both an extremely educational and humbling experience, and I think developers need to go through it. However, you can't really have that experience until you've done it for more that 10 years.