Wanted for Christmas: The most dreadful, impossible, legacy project from hell

By definition, self-employed software developers are always looking for new projects. But lately something else has been nagging at me. I’ve enjoyed some of the projects I’ve worked on this year, but they’ve only stretched my skills a tiny bit. I’m not just looking for a new project, I’m looking for a new kind of project.

Looking back on my career up to this point, the projects that have entertained me most have been ones with blank slates, using new, cutting edge technologies. That is very common with programmers; we like to be entertained by our work. But entertainment alone turns out to be a poor reason to take a project. I can see now that the projects which have stretched my problem solving skills the most have been the nasty legacy projects. The ones where I’m asked to do the impossible. To make things happen that otherwise couldn’t.

Most programmers run away from legacy code and projects. Not me. Legacy code is like sculpting clay to me. And lately I’ve been wanting to sculpt something. Something mighty. That’s right, I said mighty.

I want the gnarly project. The one with spaghetti code that has passed from programmer to programmer over the years, both competent and incompetent. The one that has been ported to 5 different platforms and/or languages over 20 years. The one that other programmers have looked at and thrown their hands up and run away from saying “Fuck that“. The one that the entire company is running on and dare not be touched for fear of taking down the business. The one that is holding everyone back and requires mindless redundant data-shuffling by humans just to be kept happy. The one that you’d replace in a heartbeat if only you could pull it off.

That’s what I want for Christmas. Someone tell Santa.