The reality of long-term software maintenance from the maintainer's perspective ★★★★★

Long-term software maintenance involves significantly more work than initial development, with maintenance accounting for approximately 75% of a feature's total lifecycle effort. The challenges of maintaining large codebases include dealing with software rot, backwards compatibility, and managing external contributions, which many developers underestimate. Maintaining software parallels building maintenance, where initial construction represents only a fraction of the long-term responsibility.