That’s no way to maintain a codbase though. Refactoring can’t require investigation that approaches the effort of building the fence in the first place! That c

That’s no way to maintain a codbase though. Refactoring can’t require investigation that approaches the effort of building the fence in the first place! That code base will rot out of a fear of touching it. The answer to the Chesterton rule is: put a note on your fence to explain why that fence is there, and under what conditions it can be removed in the future. (With code you also have the luxury of tests to verify the fence is there so long as the conditions for it being needed still remain)