{"slug": "maintaining-the-code-of-the-man-who-wrote-how-to-write-unmaintainable-code", "title": "Maintaining the code of the man who wrote \"How To Write Unmaintainable Code\"", "summary": "A developer revived a 1990s Java utility, the Mini PAD Submitter, originally written by Roedy Green of Canadian Mind Products, to keep it functional for submitting PAD files to software directories in 2026. The tool had compatibility issues with modern web standards, such as generating malformed URLs and lacking HTTPS support, which the developer fixed and published on GitHub as an open-source community fix.", "body_md": "Today I accidentally became the maintainer of software that was already almost three decades old: reviving a 1990s Java utility to keep the last PAD submitter alive in 2026.\n\nI was looking for a way to submit my AI app RiverScript to old desktop software directories and ended up digging through the long-forgotten world of PAD files.\n\nThere was one problem.\n\nThe only batch submission tool I could find was a Java application that first appeared in the late 1990s. The last release was in 2017.\n\nIt was written by Roedy Green of [Canadian Mind Products](https://mindprod.com/) — a software developer who passed away in 2023. He spent decades writing and freely distributing Java utilities, and maintaining the widely-read [Java Glossary](https://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html). Roedy Green also wrote [How To Write Unmaintainable Code](https://github.com/droogans/unmaintainable-code) — a famous satirical guide about writing code nobody can maintain. So, Roedy, today the code you wrote almost three decades ago was maintained.\n\nThe tool still did exactly what it was supposed to do. Thank you.\n\nIt just had absolutely no idea the modern web existed.\n\nIt happily produced URLs like `http://https://riverscript.com`\n\ninstead of [https://riverscript.com](https://riverscript.com), disabled SNI globally (which was probably a perfectly reasonable workaround at some point), and couldn't cope with the fact that almost every website now redirects HTTP to HTTPS.\n\nSo I dug through the legacy Java code, fixed the compatibility issues, and got it working again.\n\nI used it to submit my app to several software directories, then published the revived version on GitHub so anyone who still needs it can use it too.\n\nMaybe nobody will ever need it again. Maybe someone will.\n\nEither way, I'm happy this old thing works again.\n\nSo today, the code of the man who wrote \"How To Write Unmaintainable Code\" is still being maintained even after he was gone.\n\nP.S. The public repository for [Mini PAD Submitter 26.3 Revived — 2026 Community Fix](https://github.com/lexvalo/mini-pad-submitter-revived) is available and open to everyone.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/maintaining-the-code-of-the-man-who-wrote-how-to-write-unmaintainable-code", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/lexvalo/maintaining-the-code-of-the-man-who-wrote-how-to-write-unmaintainable-code-8pp", "published_at": "2026-07-16 23:03:52+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-16 23:56:31.778103+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools"], "entities": ["Roedy Green", "Canadian Mind Products", "RiverScript", "Mini PAD Submitter", "GitHub"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/maintaining-the-code-of-the-man-who-wrote-how-to-write-unmaintainable-code", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/maintaining-the-code-of-the-man-who-wrote-how-to-write-unmaintainable-code.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/maintaining-the-code-of-the-man-who-wrote-how-to-write-unmaintainable-code.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/maintaining-the-code-of-the-man-who-wrote-how-to-write-unmaintainable-code.jsonld"}}