I've inherited a lot of web projects that experienced high developer turn over rates. Sometimes these web projects are a horrible patchwork of band aid solutions. Other times they can be somewhat maintainable mozaics of half-done features each built with a different architectural style. Everytime I inherit these projects, I wish the previous developers could explain to me why things got so bad.
What puzzles me is the reaction of the owners (either a manager, a middle man company, or a client). They seem to think, "Well, if you leave, I'll just find another developer." Or they think, "Oh, it costs that much money to refactor the system? I know another developer who can do it at half the price. I'll hire him if I can't afford you." I'm guessing that the high developer turn over rate is related to the owner's mentality of "If you think it's a bad idea to build this, I'll just find another (possibly cheaper) developer to do what I want". For the owners, the approach seems to work because their business is thriving. Unfortunately, it's no fun for the developers that go AWOL 3-4 months after working with poor code, strict timelines, and little feedback.
So my question is the following:
Are the following symptoms of a project really such a bad thing for business?
high developer turn over rate
poorly built technology - often a patchwork of different and inappropriately used architectural styles
owners without a clear roadmap for their web project, and they request features on a whim
I've seen numerous businesses prosper while experiencing the symptoms above. So as a programmer, even though my instincts tell me the above points are terrible, I'm forced to take a step back and ask, "are things really that bad in the grand scheme of things?" If not, I will re-evaluate my approach to these projects.
