Personally, I think our existing languages and tools are still too primitive to avoid rewriting considerable amounts of code as requirements change. At some lev

Personally, I think our existing languages and tools are still too primitive to avoid rewriting considerable amounts of code as requirements change. At some level, rewriting is inevitable. We have developed some techniques for minimizing it. The shift from assembly to C reduced the amount of rewriting necessary when the underlying ISA changes, for example. But rewriting sections of code still seems necessary quite often, regardless of paradigm. As far as I can tell, the best technique is to write straight-line code as much as possible, and then hoist out (ideally pure) helper functions when you notice clear duplication. Then, if and when you need to rewrite, it should be easy to understand what needs to change, and you can easily inline and then re-hoist helper functions as needed. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend this post about semantic compression by Casey Muratori: https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0015 https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0015