There’s a phrase I keep seeing repeated by the LinkedIn thought influencers. “All code is a liability!” they smugly proclaim.

Is that the case? What does that mean? At surface level, of course, when you run a software business, all of your code needs maintenance. Things like dependencies, changing requirements, scaling, whatever – you’ll always have to come back to it.

But, put simply, code is not a liability. Your business’ code is an asset. It’s why you have a business. If your code is a liability, delete it. If it’s really more of a liability than it is an asset, and counts against your business’ value on the ledger, just shut it down.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say “every line of code will eventually cause you problems”, and that’s closer to the truth, but still clickbait. I’ve worked on microservices that needed nothing more than their dependencies bumped once in a while. I’ve worked on web applications that have unit tests (that I wrote) which ensure they function as they were written, and that changes to them can be reliably made without causing regressions.

“All code is a liability” is perhaps a strawman that is meant to be knocked down by telling the speaker how you plan on keeping it positive in the asset column. But it’s not helping anyone to twiddle your moustache and suggest that all software is not an asset.