[dgb23]

To me that's a wrong way to look at software maintenance.

What do you think leads to a better result?

- I create software that I _want_ to maintain and _will_ maintain.

- I create software that I think someone else wants to maintain, I leave the project after.

At least in open source, some of the most praised and successful software was built _and_ maintained by the same people at least for a substantial amount of time.

Thinking about it, this pattern of "I, the rock star will build it, you the code monkey will maintain it." Is a red flag.

[whstl]

That's not a good way to predict how maintainable software is.

I've seen plenty of "software that I _want_ to maintain and _will_ maintain" that is complete shit from a maintainability point of view.

I've seen one-offs left by a consultant that are pretty amazing.

The main difference in both cases was that more experienced developers made better and simpler code.