Whether one fully understands or not, rewriting always results in chance of breakage. Ceteris parabus I always favor rewriting if only to allow the rewriting p

Whether one fully understands or not, rewriting always results in chance of breakage. Ceteris parabus I always favor rewriting if only to allow the rewriting programmer easier maintenance going forward. When the breakage reveals why the old code was written in that peculiar way, the hope is that the cost of breakage is less than the time cost of understanding the peculiarity. Obviously, for big stakes, e.g., the Google search algorithm, this "move fast and break things" ethos is untenable.