The term ‘load-bearing code’ can be used to refer to software that exhibits the following attributes.
- Has no documentation or automated tests
- Written by an ex-developer
- Used by a large portion of the code base
- Supports critical system processes
This term was inspired by its memorable use by Cosmo Kramer in the Seinfeld episode “The Chicken Roaster”: Jerry, these are load-bearing walls, they’re not gonna come down!
I have encountered load-bearing code from legacy open source applications, inherited projects or debugging production software.