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Every time you see someone inveigh against a particular system that has been in place for a long time, you should ask: "I wonder why that system was put there?
by jellicle 14y ago
Every time you see someone inveigh against a particular system that has been in place for a long time, you should ask: "I wonder why that system was put there? Maybe there was a reason."
Netscape decided to throw away all their code and do a complete rewrite, and then realized that just about all of it was there for a reason. The Economist is happy to do a drive-by on agricultural price stabilization, but if they were successful there would be years where your frigging Raisin Bran was priced at $200/box, and the Economist wouldn't have anything to say then, except perhaps "not our problem if you idiots listened to us".
Agricultural price stabilization schemes exist for a reason.
- raldi 14y agoWhen you say things like "$200 a box" that are clearly exaggerations, readers of your comment are unable to tell whether your other statements are similarly exaggerated -- in this case, your claim that most of the original Netscape code was actually discovered to be non-cruft. I know Joel Spolsky famously wrote about the Netscape rewrite, but a solid citation would be really helpful here.