Planning, Decay, and Rescue vs Continuous Cleanup

Or why delaying early cleanup can devastate your budget beyond belief, and how to learn to love clean code.

David Rodenas PhD

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Prompted by the author.

This article serves as the capstone to our series on long-term software development strategies, and aims to provide a final verdict.

This article is the culmination of a series where we’ve discussed the two major long-term software development strategies and how they impact development. We’ve explored the real cost of a big refactor, the expense of making small refactors, and now the time has come to pit them against each other and offer a final verdict.

Failure is a choice

The series began by discussing the U-Shaped Curve, a graph that illustrates the life of a product. Both the beginning and the end of a product’s life are often riddled with numerous defects. However, there is a maturity phase in between with relatively few problems, which is generally considered the product’s useful life.

The U-Shaped Curve

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David Rodenas PhD

Passionate software engineer & storyteller. Sharing knowledge to advance our skills. Join me on a journey of discovery in the world of software engineering.