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You're talking about rewrites. I'm talking about cleaning up messes left by lazy people long ago, so long ago that most of the juniors are scared to clean it up
by lugg 8y ago
You're talking about rewrites. I'm talking about cleaning up messes left by lazy people long ago, so long ago that most of the juniors are scared to clean it up despite it being impossible to understand without a days reading.
You can say it disrupts others understanding of shitty old code, frankly I don't care. Code is not immutable and maintaining status quo helps nobody except the old guard stay relevant.
- quietbritishjim 8y agoI said: > Of course, sometimes rewrites/refactors really are an improvement If that's what you were talking about in the first place, fair enough and my apologies.
- lugg 8y agoNo apologies needed. It was a fair assumption and I do agree with your points, although I think I've come to move more in the other direction the last few years. Those perfect one line fixes are great but they approach their limits and eventually need to be refactored. This is natural and should not be frowned upon. Likewise you can't just refactor all the time, one line fixes are faster and less costly in all sorts of ways. The key is to pick and choose when to use each strategy. I think we're too often looking for simple rules. There are none. Just a bunch of guidelines.