> I've heard, but cannot yet validate, that code now only lives 3 years. That would be the rate at which the Hello World's and the front-end pieces get replace

> I've heard, but cannot yet validate, that code now only lives 3 years. That would be the rate at which the Hello World's and the front-end pieces get replaced. Back-end or entreprise code is very different in my experience. Most enterprise internal apps actually live for much much longer that that. These are seen as cost centers and never get the necessary cash to be properly refactored. They are usually riddled with copious amounts of lava flow anti-patterns [1]; and outlive several times over the users, the developers, the management, and the founders/CEOs. If the hardware dies, they get put as-is on a VM that emulates the old hardware. Development is incremental and grinds slowly down, tending to the asymptotic ratio of changing business needs w.r.t. the amount of archeology required. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_flow_(programming) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_flow_(programming)