4 ms·

It's downright stupid to say all code will be rewritten every 2-3 years, because in reality this never happens as completely as it's stated. As the article men

It's downright stupid to say all code will be rewritten every 2-3 years, because in reality this never happens as completely as it's stated. As the article mentions, it's about figuring out what makes sense to fix now, or wait until later. But yes technical debt applies to all projects. The way we interact with it just varies.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lttlrck 7y ago
Indeed. 2-3 years is short, that way of thinking could discourage doing things right in the first place because ‘it’ll be rewritten it in 2-3 years so it doesn’t matter’.
rsweeney21 7y ago
Nice straw man. Nobody said "all code will be rewritten every 2-3 years". He said "most code" will be rewritten every 2-3 years. Also, like I said, these were values on his team. We were a front-end application and every 2-3 years Netflix would rebuild their player UI which usually involved a complete rewrite.
- nixpulvis 7y ago
  I'm just saying that if you have it in your head most code is going to be rewritten every 2 years, it's understandable if you don't bother making things easy to work on, and just hack it together. An argument that "eh, most code is rewritten anyway, who cares" is what I'm reacting to, and have seen countless times myself. But I don't want to say there is never a time someone will say, "this code is going away, don't spend too much time fixing it now" and it's really really good advise.
- jsight 7y ago
  Its funny that you mention specifically this related to UI code. I was thinking about it after your first comment, and basically every product that I've worked on that fit this style of development has been UI related. And indeed, most UI projects have had almost complete rewrites every 2-3 years for one reason or another. The ones that didn't were effectively stalled projects. This makes me think that technical debt really can be thought about in a completely different way for frontend code in many cases.
  - user5994461 7y ago
    A few years make sense for UI for consumer products. The evolution of displays has been tremendous in the last decade and a half. Desktop screens have doubled in size and resolution, while mobile and tablets just appeared overnight and when from nothing to where they are today.
    - jsight 7y ago
      Products have changed, but also UI design tends to be driven (or at least influenced) by marketing. And marketing trends change regularly driving a need for markup and styling to be revisited. In theory, this is just marketing, but in practice if often turns into much more.
Aeolun 7y ago
In the case stated though, they were talking about a silverlight player. I don’t think they quite got to the point where they had to rewrite it.
- wccrawford 7y ago
  Sure they did. They rewrote it in another language and phased out the Silverlight language completely.
user5994461 7y ago
Well, that sounds about right from my experience, for some type of code and organizations. The original developers have left after a few years, newcomers don't understand the system and may not even try to. It will ultimately get rewritten in newer technologies and frameworks, that happen to be nice for their resume, whether it was obsolete or not.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lttlrck 7y ago

Indeed. 2-3 years is short, that way of thinking could discourage doing things right in the first place because ‘it’ll be rewritten it in 2-3 years so it doesn’t matter’.

rsweeney21 7y ago

Nice straw man. Nobody said "all code will be rewritten every 2-3 years". He said "most code" will be rewritten every 2-3 years. Also, like I said, these were values on his team. We were a front-end application and every 2-3 years Netflix would rebuild their player UI which usually involved a complete rewrite.

nixpulvis 7y ago
I'm just saying that if you have it in your head most code is going to be rewritten every 2 years, it's understandable if you don't bother making things easy to work on, and just hack it together. An argument that "eh, most code is rewritten anyway, who cares" is what I'm reacting to, and have seen countless times myself. But I don't want to say there is never a time someone will say, "this code is going away, don't spend too much time fixing it now" and it's really really good advise.
jsight 7y ago
Its funny that you mention specifically this related to UI code. I was thinking about it after your first comment, and basically every product that I've worked on that fit this style of development has been UI related. And indeed, most UI projects have had almost complete rewrites every 2-3 years for one reason or another. The ones that didn't were effectively stalled projects. This makes me think that technical debt really can be thought about in a completely different way for frontend code in many cases.
- user5994461 7y ago
  A few years make sense for UI for consumer products. The evolution of displays has been tremendous in the last decade and a half. Desktop screens have doubled in size and resolution, while mobile and tablets just appeared overnight and when from nothing to where they are today.
  - jsight 7y ago
    Products have changed, but also UI design tends to be driven (or at least influenced) by marketing. And marketing trends change regularly driving a need for markup and styling to be revisited. In theory, this is just marketing, but in practice if often turns into much more.

Aeolun 7y ago

In the case stated though, they were talking about a silverlight player. I don’t think they quite got to the point where they had to rewrite it.

wccrawford 7y ago
Sure they did. They rewrote it in another language and phased out the Silverlight language completely.

user5994461 7y ago

Well, that sounds about right from my experience, for some type of code and organizations. The original developers have left after a few years, newcomers don't understand the system and may not even try to. It will ultimately get rewritten in newer technologies and frameworks, that happen to be nice for their resume, whether it was obsolete or not.