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A comment on Ask HN: When you are getting acquired does documentation/code really matter?.

Re:Ask HN: When you are getting acquired does documentation/... by staunch on Wednesday June 01, 2011 @03:01PM (#2608779)
It depends on what they're acquiring you for. If they're acquiring you as a team of great programmers and they see your code is shit that probably isn't good.

If they're acquiring you because you built a product that has great adoption in the marketplace (YouTube), but your code is spaghetti they won't care very much.

If it's based on revenue they really won't care.

In most cases your core team will be required to stay on at the new company long enough that any missing documentation will have had time to get written.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: When you are getting acquired does documentation/... by jf271 on Saturday June 04, 2011 @08:08PM (#2620818)
Great product and spaghetti code works for a while. They will buy you for market position but you will lose two years development down the line to bring the code into corporate standards. It will take to engineering managers to make it happen. From experience.
[ Parent | on HN ]