035: Being a Swamp Guide

Software is never "done". And, as it continues to evolve over time, it often gathers a lot of accidental and essential complexity. This makes it harder to on-board new engineers into a legacy application (and a legacy organization). Enter swamp guides: the aged and battle-hardened staff who know where all the bodies are buried. These guides can hand-hold new team-members as they walk fresh-eyes through the fog of war, helping them to understand where everything lives and how everything works. And, hopefully, leave the swamp a little cleaner than they found it.

Notes & Links

• Stack Overflow for Teams
• Big Ball of Mud
• Hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

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With audio editing and engineering by ZCross Media.

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