[louiskottmann]

I find the thought daunting but the reality surprisingly easy.

You just keep up as you go, as long as you keep things close to the framework it's fine.

[IshKebab]

> You just keep up as you go

He said "Updating a project that was started 5-6 years ago takes a lot of time."

[WJW]

Yes but GP said "In reality it's not that much".

[bryanlarsen]

Not much work every few months turns into a lot over years, especially if you skip a few of those "every few months" events.

[tomnipotent]

I'm confused. It's too much work to upgrade dependencies, but not too much time to write from scratch and maintain, in perpetuity, original code?

[bryanlarsen]

Yes. I've probably spent more time maintaining a trivial Rails app originally written in 2007 than I spent writing it in the first place.

[WJW]

But if you would have rewritten the entire app every time you needed to update the dependencies, that would have taken even more time.

[WJW]

That is obviously true but doesn't mean as much as you seem to think. Washing laundry is also not much work but it adds up to a lot over the years, especially if you skip a few weeks of laundry every once in a while. That is not an excuse to not do it.

The answer is the same in both cases: acquire some discipline and treat maintenance with the respect it deserves.