Bad Code Is Kudzu

Bad code as an invasive species is the freshest take I've heard. I have a hard enough time arguing with people that tech debt isn't about bad code, but shifting priorities and requirements. This is going to be a really useful analogy for me going forward, thanks!

I thought we solved the kudzu problem by having goats graze on them and rip them out by the roots, right? So maybe we should set goats on legacy git repos as well.

The hardware auto-detection tool in Red Hat Linux was also called Kudzu, before udev times: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/NoMoreKudzu

Coincidentally, the same plant in Japanese is kuzu (クズ, or 葛), which shares the same pronunciation as the word for trash (屑). So bad code is trash.

> as a way to combat soil erosion

I heard it differently. I heard that it was imported for aesthetic reasons (like starlings).

Nasty stuff. We're starting to see it up here, in New York. I remember it well, from Maryland.

Yay climate change!

I often "hit the reset button" on projects. It used to be waiting until the pain was great enough, but LLMs make it a lot easier.

This is a wonderful analogy.