I've been doing what amounts to maintenance programming for eleven years now, mostly in C and FORTRAN. Over that time, my attitude has changed greatly. In the

I've been doing what amounts to maintenance programming for eleven years now, mostly in C and FORTRAN. Over that time, my attitude has changed greatly. In the early days, all code looked like crap to me. I thought I could do so much better, and in some cases I could. But when I finally got to building my own systems, I ran into lots of compromises and loose ends - sometimes unavoidably. And under the pressure of deadlines, I can't say that I always documented clearly from whence came my spaghetti. I've gained a certain respect for a system that _works_, no matter how ugly. Only time can shake most of the bugs out, and once they're gone, you try not to put any back in. Sometimes you have no choice but to rewrite; but the tendency to napalm everything must be resisted. Disclaimer: nobody knows what testing means in this industry.