Software is like this. Bad software doesn't really start with bad developers. It starts with good, decent people who make decisions that seem right on the day b

Software is like this. Bad software doesn't really start with bad developers. It starts with good, decent people who make decisions that seem right on the day but in aggregate, considered over longer timeframes, are indefensible. This is a great paradox. Thank you for this. It's a great insight. Programmers have a "95th-percentile complex" where all of them think they're in the top 5%, because there's so much crappy software (more specifically, bad software architecture) out there. Not to say that good programmers aren't substantially more capable than average ones, but the fact is that bad code can very easily come from talented developers. A few things are missed in that discussion. First, architecture is much harder than it looks. Second, most of the mechanisms people use to judge programmer ability are superficial, and it's not clear even what a "95th-percentile developer" means. Third, most bad things that happen in software were either Done By No One (e.g. that refactoring that everyone needs but no one has the time to do) or Done By Too Many (e.g. legacy code that's been passed over by too many hands for its own good). I think the "broken windows" effect also applies, and it's important to be aware of this. When code gets ugly, people stop taking the time to read and understand it. It may not be possible. So each modification, even if the developers are individually quite capable, makes it a little worse-- methods get a little longer, latency increases a little bit, architectural integrity gets lost, subtle interactions multiply.