Maintaining Over Building  🔗 **Source:** [Maintaining Over Building](https://www.briancoords.com/maintaining-over-building/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [software-maintenance, vibe-coding-debt, wordpress-vs-vibe-coding, platform-stability, woocommerce, technical-debt] > author: Brian Coords > source: briancoords.com > reference: https://www.briancoords.com/maintaining-over-building/ > date created: 2026-07-27 20:20 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: Maintaining over Building > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > ### 🔗 References > - [The article](https://www.briancoords.com/maintaining-over-building/) > - [MacSparky — "Apple should just do one big thing a year"](https://www.macsparky.com/blog/2026/07/apple-should-just-do-one-big-thing-a-year/) — the stability argument Coords endorses > - [WooCommerce Core Foundations post](https://woocommerce.com/posts/woocommerce-core-foundations/) — Woo's maintenance-mode quarter > - [Neha Kalani tweet](https://x.com/thericebowlgirl/status/2081575149334335552) — team reverting from a vibecoded tool back to Linear > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened.** A short first-person reflection from a Woo (Automattic) engineer on the discipline of maintaining decades-old software in the AI era. The thesis is a corrective to the "AI lets us ship features daily" mood: when software runs on millions of live sites, caution is not timidity — it's what makes software last. Coords admits maintenance can feel like drudgery next to building "the new and shiny," then argues that's exactly backwards, citing his own vibe-coded projects (90% abandoned on GitHub), a viral example of a team reverting from a vibecoded internal tool back to Linear because maintaining it ate their real work, and MacSparky's "one big thing a year, plus a thousand small fixes" stability argument. He grants vibe-coding will take low end market share (landing pages, small sites) but doubts it for publishing and e-commerce — and discloses Woo is spending the quarter in maintenance mode clearing its GitHub backlog. > - **Why it matters.** It's a credible insider counterweight to the vibe-coding hype, from someone at the e-commerce platform most exposed to the "why not just vibe-code it" question. And it lands in a batch that already contains the MemberPress "vibe-coding hangover" argument and the wp2shell core-RCE — three angles on the same claim: *generating software and sustaining it are different jobs, and the second is where durability lives.* > - **Key stakeholders.** Platform engineers weighing feature velocity against stability; WordPress/Woo users who feel the paper cuts; the vibe-coding vendors competing for the low end; and Woo itself, which is publicly framing a maintenance quarter as a virtue rather than a lull. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** It's short, anecdotal, and comes from a maintainer with an obvious stake in valorizing maintenance — the tweet and the 90%-abandoned figure are illustrations, not evidence. The "vibe-coding won't do complex e-commerce" line is a reasonable bet, not a demonstrated limit, and the piece is also soft marketing for a Woo event and blog post. But the core distinction is sound and the honesty (Woo *is* in cleanup mode) is disarming. > - **Bottom line.** The durable idea: **maintenance is the hard, unglamorous, non-optional work that AI doesn't erase — it may even increase it, by making it trivial to generate more code that then has to be maintained.** For a mature platform, "do one big thing well and fix a thousand small things" is a stronger strategy than feature-per-day, and the vibe-coding market split (low-end churn, high-complexity durability) is the reasonable read. > ## 📖 Main Content > **The setup — maturity as constraint.** Coords opens on what it's like to work on software that's been around for decades. AI supercharges the ability to "execute random ideas," which creates a temptation to believe big platforms should ship features daily. His counter is grounded in the operating reality: when your code is "run, extended, modified, and personalized on millions of live websites," caution is mandatory. That's the whole argument in one frame — the cost of a mistake scales with the install base, and WordPress/Woo's install base is enormous. > **The honest emotional admission.** He doesn't pretend maintenance is fun. It "can sometimes feel frustrating," like "just routine maintenance, not building the new and shiny," and small iterations take longer "because you have to triple-check everything before you ship." Naming the drudgery is what earns the turn: *that quality and care is what makes good software great. It's why something lasts.* The candor is the piece's rhetorical engine — he concedes the feeling before contesting the conclusion. > **The self-implicating data point.** The line that gives the piece its credibility: *"90% of the stuff I've vibe-coded is sitting on GitHub, gathering dust."* He's not exempting himself. Vibe-coding is great at generation and bad at persistence, and he's Exhibit A. This is the same 90%-abandonment shape MemberPress cites for vibe-coded startups, arrived at from personal experience rather than vendor estimate — two independent roads to the same figure. > **The external corroboration.** He anchors the point in a tweet that hit his timeline mid-conversation: a team that had built an internal tool by vibe-coding *went back to Linear* because maintaining their own tool "was taking away from their actual work's bandwidth." This is the concrete failure mode — vibe-coding doesn't just leave abandoned repos, it can create a maintenance tax that exceeds the value of the thing built. The build was cheap; the upkeep wasn't. > **The market split — a reasonable bet, not a proof.** Coords draws the line explicitly: for "small websites and landing pages," vibe-coding will take market share from WordPress; for "something as complicated as publishing or e-commerce," he's "not so sure." This is the same low-end/high-end split the MemberPress piece makes, and it's the sensible read — but it's a prediction grounded in intuition about complexity, not a demonstrated boundary. The honest framing ("I'm not so sure") is better than false certainty. > **The stability argument, borrowed.** He endorses MacSparky's framing: *"Pick one big thing. Do it really well. Spend the other eleven months making the thousand small things people actually touch every day feel solid."* Then his own gloss: new features are marketing, but "you can't ignore the paper cuts that accumulate over time. Your users certainly won't." This is the transferable strategic claim — feature velocity is a marketing metric; perceived quality is a retention metric, and they're often in tension. > **The disclosure and the pitch.** He closes by stating Woo is spending the quarter in maintenance mode clearing its GitHub backlog (linking Woo's "Core Foundations" post), and plugs a WP Minute event about Woo's direction. The self-disclosure ("we're doing exactly this") strengthens the argument — he's not prescribing maintenance to others while shipping features himself. The event plug is mild content-marketing, appropriate to a personal blog and not distorting. > **Contested and uncertain.** Whether vibe-coding genuinely can't handle complex e-commerce, or just can't *yet* (the piece asserts intuition); whether the 90%/Linear examples generalize or are selected; and whether "maintenance mode" is a durable strategy or a one-quarter narrative. The core di Working on software that's been around for decades is interesting. With AI super-charging your ability to execute random ideas, it's tempting to believe that large platforms should be moving faster and shipping features daily. The truth is, when your software is run, extended, modified, and personalized on millions of live websites, you still have to be cautious. That caution can sometimes feel frustrating. You start to feel like your work is just routine maintenance, not building the new and shiny. Small iterations take more time, because you have to triple-check everything before you ship. That quality and care, however, is what makes good software great. It's why something lasts. Meanwhile 90% of the stuff I've vibe-coded is sitting on GitHub, gathering dust. I was chatting about this feeling with a co-worker when this tweet hit my timeline: "quick update on how this is going: they have gone back to linear because maintaining their internal tool that they vibecoded was taking away from their actual work's bandwidth." — Neha Kalani (@thericebowlgirl), July 27, 2026 Maintenance isn't glamorous, but it's hard, essential work that doesn't disappear because of AI. For some projects, like small websites and landing pages, we're absolutely going to see more vibe-coding taking market share from WordPress. For something as complicated as publishing or e-commerce, I'm not so sure. I resonated with this article from MacSparky arguing that what most users want from their platforms is more stability: "Pick one big thing. Do it really well. Spend the other eleven months making the thousand small things people actually touch every day feel solid." New features are great for marketing, but there should be a balance. You can't ignore the paper cuts that accumulate over time. Your users certainly won't. At Woo, we're spending this quarter in maintenance-mode, focusing on cleaning up our GitHub backlog. You can read more about this foundational work on our blog. Tomorrow at 10am PDT I'll be hanging out with the WP Minute community to talk about what's been happening at Woo, from the foundational work to where we think the future is taking us., Maintaining Over Building, Brian Coords (Woo/Automattic), 01kyjmaggxxk8gx0sdm6mbhks8.