There is a disease I see so often in the software industry that I've decided to give it a name. I call it "Kirk/Scotty Syndrome". You'll know the disease when you hear it, because it will sound a lot like the following conversation.

Now, in place of "Kirk" put "Project Sponsor", "Stakeholder", "Project Manager", etc., and you'll have the exact disease I'm talking about.

If you happen to hear something like this by the water cooler, or maybe in a meeting, you'll have spotted the disease. How you treat the disease is up to you.

Now, don't get me wrong -- in a pinch you sometimes need to do some really evil things to get a patch out the door. But, pile all these little kludges on, and sooner or later "She's going to blow captain", i.e., new development will grind to a halt. And then everyone will say "What's wrong?" And Scotty will have to say "Too much magic causes software rot." (Sorry, I can't remember who actually said that, so I can't give you credit. I also doubt that Scotty would be quite that polite.) Or worse, when the new development team comes in they'll say things like "Wow, that's a bunch of spaghetti code", or "We can't maintain *that* system, we'll have to do a rewrite."

There are two things that the people that are involved with these problems need to know. First, Star Trek wasn't real -- it was a television show. Second, if you still think it was real, then I'll argue that they left out all the episodes where the Enterprise limped into the repair station to get all the duct tape and super glue removed. Those shows weren't exciting enough to air, but they would have been needed to keep the show going.

In an emergency do what you have to do to survive, but when the emergency is over, do the right thing.