Software life expectancy
The piece of ERP software that I develop for my job is in the last few months of it's life, to be superseded by an industry standard bought in package, rigid in it's ways and at great expense. To begin with about 7 years ago I was given code that was written in a very generic manner, superbly structured and fully configurable for many businesses from the from end maintenance screens. In that vein whenever I have made modifications I have tried to ensure that any settings and variables are held in the database thereby enabling changes to be made easily so avoiding hard coding such data as much as possible. This approach meant that development took longer but ultimately meant it was done 'properly'. Since the grim reaper has been hovering over it's head I have found myself slipping on these standards more and more with the attitude that it doesn't matter any more. There isn't the same pride in my work, anything written in these last few months to get us by has little or no long term value and all the time and effort over the years will have no future benefits. A sad tale! Record of the day: Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin from Led Zeppelin IV. I never get bored of this album and could have chosen any track...apart from the most famous one.