The Great Web Maintainability Survey

Published on May 14, 2017 (updated Jul 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’s one thing imperative in web development then it’s to prevent, by design, all changes that can be avoided—including 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’s important to survey the industry again and collect, more comprehensively this time, current good (but also poor) practices around maintainability. For that reason I’ve created a brief survey which I invite you to contribute to:

Three questions but one survey. — Three questions for you.

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’ll publish the results in the weeks after—stay updated through one of this site’s feeds or on Twitter.

Update (June 16, 2017)

The results are in, the survey is closed, and I’ve already started doing something useful with all the feedback. Thank you!

Update (January 24, 2018)

Thanks to everyone’s feedback, here is: The Compact Guide to Web Maintainability: 200 Tips and Resources.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).

I love trying things—in 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—and share feedback and advice that makes my work better.)