What was it harmful to? It was not harmful to the correctness of initial-release software. It was harmful to maintainability, and secondarily to developer pro

What was it harmful to? It was not harmful to the correctness of initial-release software. It was harmful to maintainability, and secondarily to developer productivity. But these things are anecdotal, they cannot be measured. Development and maintenance come out of different budgets: this is mandated by the accounting manual and enforced by auditors. The classification of the expenses is pervasively fudged by middle management, else (in most environments) no maintenance could ever be done. This makes it impossible to close the feedback loop on any development process.