As GP said, rethink the code, from as far out as you need to. Granted, much code has been written under the explicit constraint of not doing this. In that case,

As GP said, rethink the code, from as far out as you need to. Granted, much code has been written under the explicit constraint of not doing this. In that case, do the nasty thing and then if it matters that much to you, find somewhere else to work that cares a similar amount about producing maintainable software.