The only way to get off the rewrite treadmill is to have a good API. Half of ours suck because people focus more on the implementation details, also caring more

The only way to get off the rewrite treadmill is to have a good API. Half of ours suck because people focus more on the implementation details, also caring more about unit tests than integration tests when it should be the other way around. Similarly, those failing to see the value of a good API end up deprecating it for no reason. We had zero say in most of the APIs we use. When I started demanding clients take part in our API design, they were pleasantly surprised.