Programmers can always find ways to improve a codebase at the technical level.  And they can think up new features.  So they can keep working on something as long as you&#x27;ll let them.  But is the &#x27;marker&#x27; of a TODO comment buried in a million-line codebase going to seem more important than a programmer&#x27;s vision of a cool new thing or rewrite?  What about prioritizing the new features that could actually get new clients&#x2F;sales?  Or prioritizing fixing the pain points that normal users experience but programmers don&#x27;t notice?  What if the next TODO is going in a good direction technically, but not the right direction from a business standpoint?<p>There might be something to this idea for non-critical hobby projects, (wasps build nests for their own use, not to sell) but it seems somewhat limited.