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Ah refactoring and rewrites. Always seem like such a great idea. And can destroy massive companies and projects. Was it Marc Andreessen who wrote that awesome p

Ah refactoring and rewrites. Always seem like such a great idea. And can destroy massive companies and projects. Was it Marc Andreessen who wrote that awesome post on how the rewrite of Netscape 6 seemed like a great idea but failed to consider all the little wisdoms built into the current version? It’s impossible to find now with all the noise around him. Production software more than a few versions old is a living breathing thing that has had the hell beaten out of it by QA team and users and survived repeatedly by having passionate devs make it stronger. What it needs is love, not pedants. Some of the most used and popular software in the world is fugly beyond belief but it works, is maintained and loved and continues to defy newcomers.

1123581321 5y ago
Spolsky wrote about Netscape, or at least that was how I originally encountered the story. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
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lovecg 5y ago
That might be true of some complete rewrites, but refactoring - when done right - improves all the good stuff like composability, readability, and simplicity, without changing any logic (unless you count fixing bugs which it will likely uncover). There’s also a bit of learned helplessness on some teams averse to refactoring, as in “things were always done this way, don’t touch it if it works, the opportunity cost is too large, etc. etc.”. In my experience, this sentiment evaporates when presented with the results of properly done refactoring - when it becomes obvious how much faster the team can move without compromising on quality (and frankly the work just becomes more enjoyable).
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  Wouldn’t any decision - when done right - improve the good things? I tend to look for situations (since I am never an expert, just a person trying to get the job done) felt like I k ow ahead of time what “done right” means.
justinator 5y ago
Having used Netscape 4 extensively, it was in a good place to throw out everything and start over. Joel is wrong on this in the cited blog post, > It worked pretty darn well on an awful lot of real world computer systems. It worked adequately, but had no future - that was a big problem, since IE was so, so much better. They were totally screwed and a rewrite is all that would have saved them. Netscape 6 totally sucked, but it finally found its feet - and it took a few different versions/browsers based on the codebase to get right. Frankly, I'm amazed it's still around, given the pressure of Safari/Chrome/etc.

1123581321 5y ago

Spolsky wrote about Netscape, or at least that was how I originally encountered the story. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lovecg 5y ago

That might be true of some complete rewrites, but refactoring - when done right - improves all the good stuff like composability, readability, and simplicity, without changing any logic (unless you count fixing bugs which it will likely uncover). There’s also a bit of learned helplessness on some teams averse to refactoring, as in “things were always done this way, don’t touch it if it works, the opportunity cost is too large, etc. etc.”. In my experience, this sentiment evaporates when presented with the results of properly done refactoring - when it becomes obvious how much faster the team can move without compromising on quality (and frankly the work just becomes more enjoyable).

edmundsauto 5y ago
Wouldn’t any decision - when done right - improve the good things? I tend to look for situations (since I am never an expert, just a person trying to get the job done) felt like I k ow ahead of time what “done right” means.

justinator 5y ago

Having used Netscape 4 extensively, it was in a good place to throw out everything and start over. Joel is wrong on this in the cited blog post, > It worked pretty darn well on an awful lot of real world computer systems. It worked adequately, but had no future - that was a big problem, since IE was so, so much better. They were totally screwed and a rewrite is all that would have saved them. Netscape 6 totally sucked, but it finally found its feet - and it took a few different versions/browsers based on the codebase to get right. Frankly, I'm amazed it's still around, given the pressure of Safari/Chrome/etc.