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by bigiain
3382 days ago
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Even doctors understand that sometimes it's necessary to meet unrealistic deadline by doing quick and dirty hacks. When you or I break our collar bone, the doctor will immobilise it in a sling for 4-8 weeks while it heals. If you're chasing a motorcycle world championship though, they'll go in and screw it back together with titanium support and get you back to top-level performance in 2 days: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/108388 Sometimes you need to cut your code open, jam in some temporary scaffolding or duct tape, then stitch it back closed again - promising yourself you'll go back in and take the kludged fix back out when deadlines and circumstances are less critical... |
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This person is in a place where they have spent years piling kludge on kludge. They never go back and fix anything, which is why they have such a mess. And here there was no emergency mentioned; he was describing their normal practice. It's duct tape all the way down.
At some point you have to draw the line and say, "No, from now on, we'll treat normal circumstances like normal circumstances, and save the duct tape for real emergencies." I am suggesting he start drawing the line. Either they'll give in or they'll negotiate his exit, and either outcome is good for him. As the Agile people say, "Either change your organization or change your organization."