Agree somewhat. This is also quite common. I think what new person forgets (I'm guilty) when looking at "rubbish" code is the context in which it was written. W

Agree somewhat. This is also quite common. I think what new person forgets (I'm guilty) when looking at "rubbish" code is the context in which it was written. Was this done at 3am the night before it shipped? Was team morale incredibly low and this was the only guy left to write this? Did he/she not know of a better way? Did this start as a simple block and slowly accreted over time? Was he/she going through a rough patch but didn't have the time to refactor it. We've all had off days and spent more than another day unpicking what we did. Heck I look at code I wrote 12 months ago and could quite often tear it apart. This kind of thing just happens in places. Discipline is key. It's hard, but sometimes there has to be a balance or things wouldn't get done.