Next time I go looking for a job, I am going to interview
the code too. I am getting too old to struggle years to
find my way around 200KLOC of undocumented code. It takes
too long to start becoming effective. Of course, getting on
a new project is another possibility.
It is a nice contrast, I have a day job with no
documentation and few comments, and a side project
translating Java to C. The Java code has fairly complete
JavaDoc comments, good additional comments, and some
additional HTML docs. Finding my way around it is
straightforward.
The day job code probably will take 2-3 years to really know
my way around. Of course, if I split, that knowledge goes
with me. This product is just hanging on and needs new
features, bug fixes, and visible progress to stay alive.
There will probably never be the time & money to really
document it. I expect this is a description of a project
that has already entered its death spiral.