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Is it better to start from scratch rather than refactoring? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org to c/programming@beehaw.org

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Refactoring gets really bad reviews, but from where I'm sitting as a hobby programmer in relative ignorance it seems like it should be easier, because you could potentially reuse a lot of code. Can someone break it down for me?

I'm thinking of a situation where the code is ugly but still legible here. I completely understand that actual reverse engineering is harder than coding on a blank slate.

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[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 4 points 3 days ago

This is a good answer.

At my job, there was a desire to do a big rewrite of the system. It was a disaster. We spent like 8 months on this project where we delivered no value to customers. Then there was essentially a mutiny from the engineering team and we killed it.

We've since built on top of the original system and had, in the words of product leadership, "the most productive quarter in the history of the company".

Now, why was it a disaster? The biggest reason was that people, especially people in leadership positions, did not understand the existing system very well. They would then make decisions based on falsehoods and mythology.