[penguindev]

> As with most things in software engineering the technical problems are symptoms of the economic causes.

FTFY. Seriously - #2 & #3, not enough money for a 'co pilot'. And for 2, at least there is some ostensible owner of the module, rather than a maintenance by committee which can be even shittier.

#1, maybe not cost effective to move, or would be opportunity cost. #4, I'm sympathetic to not shipping the prototype, but ever hear of first mover / time to market? obsolescence is one of the biggest risks in development[1]. Plan on shipping it and rewriting it in bite size chunks ... forever!

Anyway, it was a nice read. 'mortgage driven development' hah.

[1] In the Mythical Man Month, these are both mentioned, even though they contradict each other, and many more developers seem to only quote the 'don't ship the prototype'.