[drumdance]

Heh. I once joined an early stage startup that had a big bowl of spaghetti code, no source control and no framework. My first insistence was source control. Then after a year in which we hired several developers, I insisted we move to a framework so the learning curve wouldn't be so steep for new people.

It was a monumental effort that took more than a year to complete, and we did the "brain transplant" (as we called it) at the same time we were moving to a new data center. Launch was shaky but overall it went very well. One of my fondest memories is of the "war room" on launch day as we triaged incoming bug reports. The team worked great together and at the end of the day we felt like we'd really accomplish something.

Sometimes of stress can be very rewarding.