Before it went to the printed publications paradise, Software Development Magazine was running an "Horror Stories" series for Halloween time every year. It was fun to write, instructive to read and pretty scary as well.
Nowadays, the "Daily WTF", prudishly renamed Worse Than Failure, brings us this kind of story everyday, if not several times per day. A common point between all these stories seems to be the universal existence of software skeletons in IT closets, waiting to jump on poor new programmers laps and make their life a nightmare.
Life being short, it can be desirable to avoid getting aboard a ship that carries such monsters but how to tell that a company is facing "legacy code issues" from a few interviews? This kind of risk might make working for an open source software company a desirable move. Skeletons dislike open closets.
Are open source companies free of monsters? Of course not: for all the pieces of software that are not public (think back office systems, web sites...), there is a risk of facing the ugly spawn of years of software rot. But at least all the public facing code will have to stand to some elevated standards and is "up to the challenge of 1000+ eyeballs reading [it] every day".
Should code skeletons be avoided at all cost? I do not think so. Most of us can not see dead people, similarly management can not see dead programs. IIABDFI is the golden rule but sometimes it becomes clear that there is only that much marathons a dead man can run. Then, if your job is to refactor such a monster so it becomes maintainable and versatile, it can be as challenging as fun.
What should be avoided at all cost is the summoning of new skeletons in closets. With all the knowledge we have now thanks luminaries in our industry, this should be possible.
