For many years now I have wondered if it might be practical for software engineers to be kept "on retainer", as lawyers often are, by companies. I once purchas

For many years now I have wondered if it might be practical for software engineers to be kept "on retainer", as lawyers often are, by companies. I once purchased an absolutely fantastic FTP client called BulletProof FTP. But it followed the sad trajectory of so much software. It reached very near to absolute perfection. And then they just kept working on it. It grew like a cancer. It destroyed everything good about the software and eventually made it worthless. It was clear, to me at least, that there was simply some manager somewhere who had personal problems and couldn't tolerate sitting still, forcing developers to just keep bolting garbage to the side of the thing. A lot of it boils down to the Protestant Work Ethic having no place in the modern world. It made sense for situations where 'work' was physical labor. That benefits from perseverance and endurance. Mental work does not benefit from perseverance and endurance. It suffers tremendously from them. The brain simply does not work that way.