"Truth" about Booking.com

That's quite sad.

I remember a while back somebody posting on blogs.perl about how bad it was there. We all talked about it at a Perl Mongers meeting a while back. People (smart people) were thinking of applying and moving countries but that post really convinced people to stay.

I've also seen it posted on LinkedIn a number of times (from needing 40 people to 25 people), but since it looks like they are having trouble finding good Perl people then the OP's post kind of explains it.

The Perl world is quiet small where everyone knows everyone (literally). Treat people this way and word gets around. IOW, karma's a bitch.

Edit: I just re-read the date on OP's post. It's actually the same post I cited.

So I posted this, not to say "booking sux" but to spark a debate on the fine line between glorious code and shipping features.

Booking are #1 in their market and are killing it. Does this mean that despite our disdain at copypasta code, maybe code quality isn't really a problem?

I've been thinking about complex software a lot recently. Let's say that just like death and taxes, a complete rewrite is an inevitability in a sufficiently large software project. Look at Window 95 -> XP -> 7 or the introduction of OS X, or even Windows Mobile -> Windows Phone.

If your code quality totally sucks then you're more likely to bin your code-base and start again earlier. If your code base is great, you might trundle along for years while all your upstart competitors gobble up your market.