Yesterday I wrote about whether I should rewrite or refactor a website I have now taken over. As this website is the lively hood of my client, and because I have fallen into the trap or rewriting before, I have decided instead to refactor the code piece by piece as and when I encounter it.

I’ve had a further scoot around the web for some different opinions (or matching ones) and came across quite an interesting, if slightly old (2005 - positively ancient! ) article by a guy called Marcus Whitney: Refactor vs Rewrite. Something that struck true with me was:

and immediately began ranting about how the code was crap and needed to be replaced. Well… that attitude is pretty much crap. Obviously the code did SOMETHING for the client prior to my arrival.

I absolutely agree, and this goes along with my conclusion of my earlier post: One of the main reasons I started the rewrite was my pride - I could do better than that, but I was really missing out on the bigger picture: that site is my client’s livelyhood.

Anyway, thanks for the post Marcus, spot on.

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