The Ages of Legacy Software

You've maybe heard about levels of maturity.  You may also be aware of orders of ignorance.  Well, now you know about the Ages of Legacy.

1. The person who wrote that no longer works here. Their protégé has taken over.
2. The person who wrote that is retired. Their protégé still works here and oversees maintenance by a junior staffer.
3. The person who wrote that is dead. Their protégé recently departed the company.  The junior staffer has been promoted to project lead.
4. The person who wrote that is dead. Their protégé is now retired.  The project lead has moved on to another project.  There's an intern who can still fix some of the bugs.
5. The intern quit.  The old project lead threatened to if we gave him any more work related to the software.

The ages of legacy for software are very much related to finer detail in the last two of the the Nine Ages of Man, and also the Seven Stage's of Man (inspired by Shakespeare's "All the World's a Stage" in Act II Scene VII of As you Like It).

"Old Age" by Robert Smirke