I heard someone once say “All that ‘cruft’ you complain about, I call ‘bug fixes.’”
A mature codebase represents a lot of “tribal investment,” which is sort of like “tribal knowledge.”
It’s something that can’t easily be quantified, but, is, nonetheless, a big deal, and represents a really significant investment of resources. Throwing it away, means tossing out that investment, as well. That’s why many large software codebases are still in “non-buzzword-compliant” languages.
At the same time, we don’t want to throw good money after bad, so experience gives us the tools we need, to figure out when it’s time to “clear the decks.”
A mature codebase represents a lot of “tribal investment,” which is sort of like “tribal knowledge.”
It’s something that can’t easily be quantified, but, is, nonetheless, a big deal, and represents a really significant investment of resources. Throwing it away, means tossing out that investment, as well. That’s why many large software codebases are still in “non-buzzword-compliant” languages.
At the same time, we don’t want to throw good money after bad, so experience gives us the tools we need, to figure out when it’s time to “clear the decks.”