Sometimes, yes. I've worked for a startup where the plans changed enough to have significant effect on the code. Rewriting a lot of it ended up being necessary

Sometimes, yes. I've worked for a startup where the plans changed enough to have significant effect on the code. Rewriting a lot of it ended up being necessary and actually well-justified. As a more careful programmer, I wasted everyone's time making 'the right choices' when in this particular context, in hindsight, I could've known that rewriting the whole thing was a likely scenario. If I'd get the same job now, years later and (I hope) wiser, I'd have built a much quicker, dirtier, buggier version (essentially a prototype/alpha) instead.