The other developer usually has reasons why they designed it that way. If you just rewrite other people's code, it makes it seem like you think there is One Tru

The other developer usually has reasons why they designed it that way. If you just rewrite other people's code, it makes it seem like you think there is One True Way to writing code and that you're smarter than them. I'd ask first if they agree with a certain improvement. It shows I value them as an engineer and they might bring up critical information that I'm missing, making my "improvement" actually worse. It doesn't hurt to talk to people.