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A comment on Ask HN: What's the largest amount of bad code you have ever seen work?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What's the largest amount of bad code you have ev... by avisser on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @12:36PM (#18451777)
The fact that the first version shipped in 1979 has to contribute to this as well.

The field of software engineering has matured a lot since then.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the largest amount of bad code you have ev... by philjohn on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @03:55PM (#18453851)
I mean, PostgreSQL can trace its roots back to 1982's INGRES ... and UNIX started in 1969.

There are quite a few very old projects that don't have the same level of cruft as Oracle; it epitomises a Sales Division driven culture.

How many of those switches (that now need to be supported and tested) are because some functionality was promised to a large contract, and so it just had to be done? I would wager a good number.

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