alt Hacker NewsIt's a moot point. In Mag7 companies internal code gets thrown away within 2 years on average because of contract negotiations, new opensource projects that obviate need for the internal codebase, license changes, layoffs, etc, etc. We don't need long term maintainability because its already on its way to the garbage bin. Frankly it's always been this way.
Its' the exact opposite ... Google, nVidia, Amazon, Apple, etc. all have a deep bench of code that is a moat. They have lots of throwaway code too, but those companies are precisely the ones that pay attention to code quality, and comprehensibility by experts
A rough proxy for this would be if they say contribute to the C++ standards process, which Google Microsoft nVidia do, and basically zero "normal" companies (say SaaS) do. It means they are investing in multi-decade maintenance of their codebase