[Clubber]

>“If it makes you feel any better, there's a way in which having a big mess is a sign of success. The reason your competitors don't have messes is that they went out of business. You won, and your prize is an application that betrays the ravages of time.”

I didn't read the whole article, and that's certainly one way of looking at it. Here is another. That lack of maintainability and flexibility in a core codebase will leave your system in what's essentially cement shoes. Your team will have painted themselves in a corner and things that take hours or days in a nimble team with a nimble codebase will take weeks or months. That's fine most of the time if you're established in your industry, raking in the cash. That is until your industry pivots, and it will pivot. When it does, your team will not be able to pivot and will be included in the "out of business" companies mentioned above.

You don't have to have every algorithm tuned to computer's science's optimal guidance, you just have to have a maintainable system that can adjust to the business environment. I've been at plenty of large companies that can't adapt by adding new features because all the original programmers left, and management is to scared to touch the system for good reason, the codebase is a horrendous, unmaintainable mess.