Unsurprisingly, my feelings towards projects vary. The ones I hate involve labyrinths of legacy code, infrastructure nightmares, and new requirements to turn the Tower of Pisa into the Empire State. The ones I love give me a blank canvas on which I can paint an MVC masterpiece after lovingly drafting a throng of specs. Also, they pay shit.
You see, the amount of love you feel for a codebase tends to be inversely proportional to the compensation. The reason, when you think about it, is simple. Legacy code has by definition been around for a while, and if someone is willing to invest into maintaining it, instead of re-writing it from scratch, the software likely a) is rich in features and b) has users. Those are signs that the company has cash.
A good strategy, if you’re a freelance coder, is to have one or two long-term contracts maintaining code for someone who can pay, and take on fun, creative startup projects once in a while. And cheer up! Eventually, the clients with the legacy code will cave in and give the go-ahead to rebuild it all from scratch.
One Comment
Right!