One of the most popular questions on the Software Engineering Stack Exchange (https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/) website is this:
"I'm doing 90% maintenance and 10% development, is this normal?"
Whilst this should never be regarded as normal, for many developers, it is their reality. So, why do so many projects end up in an unmaintainable state? After all, every project starts off with a blank slate.
Some may say that it's because most programmers are inherently lazy, but most also take pride in their work, and value quality over speed. Others may say it's because the developers are incompetent, but even companies that employ very talented technical teams fall victim to this.
My theory is that during the lengthy ...
