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There's this classic article on the topic: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/0

• atesti 7y ago
  Ironically, FogBugz will be rewritten now: https://www.fogbugz.com/blog/fogbugz-rebuild-spec/ https://www.fogbugz.com/blog/fogbugz-rebuild-spec/
  • mattl 7y ago
    FogBugz went from being ASP to ASP/PHP (Wasabi) to some version of .NET where they hosted it all. I can’t believe FogBugz didn’t share any code with CityDesk.
• dfabulich 7y ago
  Joel's article is the famous classic, but he proved himself wrong when his company, Fog Creek, built Trello from the ground up, sharing no code with FogBugz. Trello became a huge success while FogBugz languished. https://medium.com/@herbcaudill/lessons-from-6-software-rewrite-stories-635e4c8f7c22 https://medium.com/@herbcaudill/lessons-from-6-software-rewr... (I think this article should be the new classic.) > My takeaway from these stories is this: Once you’ve learned enough that there’s a certain distance between the current version of your product and the best version of that product you can imagine, then the right approach is not to replace your software with a new version, but to build something new next to it — without throwing away what you have.
  • gknoy 7y ago
    Wow. This article you linked seems worthy of its own HN submission. Thanks for sharing it!
  • statictype 7y ago
    Not a great example, I think. Trello isn’t a rewrite of FogBugz. It’s a brand new product.