AT&T 5ESS switch had a similar atmosphere back in the day (no idea about now). The rule was no function deletion so you delete the code in the function instead

AT&T 5ESS switch had a similar atmosphere back in the day (no idea about now). The rule was no function deletion so you delete the code in the function instead. I remember reading about a very talented guy from Bell Labs being on the 5ESS team and writing some ridiculously small number of lines of code in one year due to all the rules in place to prevent major telephone system issues.