The myth of maintainability
Matt DuVall
Oct 12, 2013
"Will this be maintainable in the long term?” - a comment on every code review ever
I have an allergic reaction to this question. It is often used when Developer A wants to add a non-trivial component to the codebase. The room (or code review) will always have Developer B who springs up the dubious concern of maintainability. Proceed with caution.
What do we exactly mean by maintainability as developers? Will the code be easy to understand for the next person to read it? This is readability, which could be seen as a factor in maintainability, and is valid. The more pressing interpretations tend to be along the lines of extensibility, abstraction, and hand-wavy higher level design or architecture.
The problem with the latter interpretations is the possible misunderstanding of why we write software. Software exists to drive a business need, add business value, and in the end — generate revenue. Let’s not waste time (and these discussions usually end up just wasting time).
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