I need a new phrase...
I need suggestions for a new word. In software engineering, we get taught about things that are important like code clarity and maintenance but when we start work, we soon realise that only functionality that can be seen by the customer has any real worth. Things that have been done messy is resigned to being, "yeah, we'll fix that later" and we all know it won't. We all know that companies do not have capacity for people to tidy up (and potentially break) existing code. It's a bit like functionality is the bourgeois and the clarity and neatness is simply the illegitimate or maybe the working class of software engineering. Yeah, we care, just not that much. The sad fact is that this needs to be done correctly at the start or it never will be, which is sad because it causes so much pain and lack of quality issues further down the line. What word for this sadly neglected area of software engineering? For this butler/chauffeur of the software community? For this important but under-valued foundation? I reckon something like UnderCode?