Joel Spolsky famously called rewrites 'the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make.' But sometimes, a rewrite is the right call. Here's how to decide.
When to Refactor
Refactor when the existing codebase is fundamentally sound but has accumulated technical debt. If the architecture supports your product direction, incremental improvement is almost always better.
When to Rewrite
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Rewrite when the architecture fundamentally cannot support your product direction, or when the cost of working around limitations exceeds the cost of starting fresh.
Conclusion
Default to refactoring. Only rewrite when the architecture is the bottleneck, not just the code quality.
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