I think an essential part of Joel's point is that the existing code was written by other people, and you get the impulse to rewrite it rather than read it. If y

I think an essential part of Joel's point is that the existing code was written by other people, and you get the impulse to rewrite it rather than read it. If you wrote the first version entirely by yourself, then you probably have a good idea of what's in there and what it would entail to rewrite it.