Rebuild from scratch gets a bad reputation sometimes because it's the go-to response of a junior programmer with a little experience. They know the system could be done better, and it seems like the fastest way to get there is to throw out everything.

What often happens next is the realization that the existing system was handling far more edge cases than it initially appears. You often discover these edge cases when the new system is deployed and someone complains about their use case breaking. As you fix each one, the new system starts to look worse than the old while supporting half its features.

This often leads people to prefer refactors rather than rewrites. Those can take a lot longer than expected and never quite shed what made the old system bad. Budget cuts can leave the whole project in a halfway state that's worse than if it was left alone.

There are no easy answers, and the industry has not solved this problem.

How long is a piece of string?

Rebuilding always takes a lot longer than you think. Refactoring always takes a lot longer than you think. I’ve been involved in failures and successes doing either.

Today is Star Trek Day! Lazy Saturday on the couch with Star Trek III and IV and maybe later VI! 😁 🖖

Fun fact: If not for W Bush's and Trump's tax cuts, the national debt would have been decreasing permanently by now. It's funny to watch Republicans handwring about a debt crisis *they caused*

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/

This follows logically from the assertion that a fetus is a human being.

It's also barbaric and misogynistic, but hey: South Carolina.

Pro life. Unless the life can actually breathe.