Beyond Legacy Code

Here Be Dragons

We use maps to get around, to plan our trips, to clearly define a Point A, a Point B, and the shortest route between the two. Though the Latin phrase Hic sunt draconnes, or “here be dragons,” didn’t appear on ancient maps the way most people think it did, it’s become synonymous with a place we don’t know yet, somewhere that has yet to be explored. Those places at the far edges of the map are scary, full of monsters…and most of what a software developer does lies somewhere in that territory.

Everyone knows it makes management—almost anyone in fact—feel comfortable if we rely on numbers, charts, and deadlines. But to do great things in any profession means to venture into the unknown, and the unknown can’t be easily quantified. ...