[tcbawo]

That's not an age or experience thing. People can be jerks at any age or level. Good engineers do not equate illiteracy of the codebase (unfamiliarity) with ineptitude. Good engineers educate without contempt. On the flip side, many people come into an organization questioning why or how things are done. Often, the current product is a ball of inperfection and compromises. Spend 2x more time reading the code than asking questions. Understand why a fence was put there before you tear it down.

[spaceseaman]

> People can be jerks at any age or level.

Good point, I was simply saying that in my experience it's the people with "senior" in their job title who do this most often.

> many people come into an organization questioning why or how things are done.

I think Chesterton's fence is a very important concept for new engineers to learn. But sometimes it's still valuable to understand for yourself why that fence is there in the first place rather than just take someone's word for it. The best scenario is an opportunity for a senior to guide a junior in the exact why.

[matwood]

> Understand why a fence was put there before you tear it down.

I'm using this line from now on. As a senior dev with a lot of experience I find myself often being the only one questioning the tear it down mentality. Everyone wants to write greenfield code, and instead of taking the time to understand why current code looks like it is a mess people just want to start over. IMO, no one sets out to make a mess. A mess occurs are compromises are made to add new functionality and catch corner cases. I'm also fine tearing down a fence only after someone can tell my why it was put there and why it can down be torn down (and also how it can be rebuilt in some improved manner).