Thanks for your concern but I'm not sure it's burnout. It's waking up. Here's my process:
1) Sure it's ugly, but look at what it can do!
2) Ok, it's ugly, but with good practices, good people, good management, you can ameliorate the worst of it.
3) Fuck it.
I've decided that this is my last contract. I have a project called Kayia, and my wife has a site called Kongoroo. I'll continue to work on those but otherwise that's it. If I'm not coding in Kayia, I'm not coding.
I completely understand your #3. We keep making excuses and rationalizing, for years and years, the fact that the overwhelming majority of software projects are fucked.
It doesn't sound like burnout to me either. I went through something similar. The solution was to admit that I had taken a wrong turn in my programming career, and commit to working only on things I believe in. It was either that or get out of the software business altogether.
1) Sure it's ugly, but look at what it can do!
2) Ok, it's ugly, but with good practices, good people, good management, you can ameliorate the worst of it.
3) Fuck it.
I've decided that this is my last contract. I have a project called Kayia, and my wife has a site called Kongoroo. I'll continue to work on those but otherwise that's it. If I'm not coding in Kayia, I'm not coding.