A note on maintainability

And this is where it gets complicated. Your code is ready—it works. You have followed a new programming method, and the preliminary developments of the project have been going smoothly for several months. And it’s pretty obvious: there may have been no foundation on which to build your project; you were lucky enough to start from a blank sheet of paper. However, the question of maintainability will soon arise. Whichever programming technique you choose, whichever people are working on it, bugs will always appear. You may need new people to fix all this (and thus teach them your working methods). Are you sure that you have mastered your new methodologies enough to ensure the follow-up of an application over several years? It is quite possible, but you must be aware of this and know what to do if you get stuck on the maintenance of your application.

The purpose of this chapter is not to discourage initiative and the testing of new work methodologies...