We forked some code in 2004;
It should've been cleaner heading out the door,
But, "We're on the short road to 'broke' from 'poor,'
And maintenance contracts are what that work's for."
But as I copied all the files I couldn't throw away,
They said, "We're coming back to play, yeah--
You know you'll see us back in play."
And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."
We fork again in 2006:
This flabby old dog needs to learn new tricks.
But our client doesn't want their data mixed:
We throw it at the wall again--and it still sticks!
And as I hit CTRL-C and then CTRL-V,
The code said, "You ain't seen the last of me, no--
You know it'll be you and me."
And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."
So, the next fork lands around 2008
The app. is buckling under its own weight.
But, see, there's this new client, they have some bling
We're hitting the big-time, can't ya' hear "Cha-ching!"?
We'll just get a big, bad server to handle the bursts--
But you need to make the code work first.
And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."
Now we find ourselves here in 2010:
The same old movie's playing again.
The code is too duct-taped to take a new patch
Our best option would be to start over from scratch.
But we can't afford the staff-hours, 'cuz we're in a time-crunch;
Competitors would eat our lunch, yo--
Competitors would eat our lunch.
And I realized amid the dismay and the fuss,
We've none to blame but us:
The enemy is us.
And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."
