The Great Web Maintainability Survey
Published on May聽14, 2017 (updated Jul聽8, 2023), filed under development, maintainability. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)
The maintenance and economics of websites (and apps) is a much-neglected topic in the web development community, perhaps encouraged by both project owners, who are at times inhibited by counter-productive mindsets, perhaps supported by unhealthy abstraction through tools, frameworks, and libraries.
The cost of maintenance is high, however, manifesting itself in many a redo that should have been a redesign, and that sometimes foolishly so, given that there are many plain unnecessary changes. All changes have a price, and so if there鈥檚 one thing imperative in web development then it鈥檚 to prevent, by design, all changes that can be avoided鈥攊ncluding things as inane as renaming style sheets.
Now, I have written about the maintenance and maintainability of websites for many years, and I deem it鈥檚 important to survey the industry again and collect, more comprehensively this time, current good (but also poor) practices around maintainability. For that reason I鈥檝e created a brief survey which I invite you to contribute to:
I have nothing more to say; the survey will be open for one month (until June 14, 2017) to allow for hopefully wide participation. I鈥檒l publish the results in the weeks after鈥攕tay updated through one of this site鈥檚 feeds or on Twitter.
Update (June 16, 2017)
The results are in, the survey is closed, and I鈥檝e already started doing something useful with all the feedback. Thank you!
Update (January 24, 2018)
Thanks to everyone鈥檚 feedback, here is: The Compact Guide to Web Maintainability: 200 Tips and Resources.
About Me
I鈥檓 Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I鈥檓 an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I鈥檝e worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I鈥檓 an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O鈥橰eilly, Frontend Dogma).
I love trying things鈥攊n web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Interpret charitably but be critical鈥攁nd share feedback and advice that makes my work better.)