> Or rather, how does one avoid getting into this situation. IMO, the problem is technical debt. Most likely, in the majority of these cases, the engineers wor

> Or rather, how does one avoid getting into this situation. IMO, the problem is technical debt. Most likely, in the majority of these cases, the engineers working on the system knew perfectly well that it was a mess, was very difficult to learn how to maintain, and many parts were dangerous to modify. Most likely they told management multiple times that this was a problem and what the consequences of it would be. They would have refused to budget resources for improving it, so everyone either saw the writing on the wall and quit, or gutted it out and learned how to manage the system eventually. Maybe the system limps along for a while longer, but it's only getting worse and the knowledge needed to maintain it more siloed and specialized. Eventually you lose a key person, something breaks that nobody left can figure out, or maybe the whole thing just implodes like the main story here. To avoid it, you must understand the pattern, hire good technical people, and give them the resources needed to improve the system in an orderly fashion.