[pdkl95]

> spaghetti, monolithic

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

It can be tempting to declare entire sections of legacy code - or even the entire project - to be an unmaintainable mess that isn't worth fixing. Reading code for a true understanding of how it works can be a slow, laborious, annoying process. Simply rewriting everything from scratch often appears to be easier than trying to read, understand, and fix a legacy pile of spaghetti.

Giving in to that temptation and rewriting a project instead of fixing and refactoring the existing code is almost always the wrong decision. The messy spaghetti probably started out a lot cleaner. The mess that accreted over time is often important bugfixes and design changes. Some problems only show up in the field and sometimes requirements change. The spaghetti of bugfixes, workarounds, and changes might be the most valuable part of the codebase. Throwing it out might be throwing away the accumulated knowledge and experience of many expensive developer man-years.

Instead of rewriting, preserve the bugfixes and real-world experience by refactoring the spaghetti. It can be annoying and tedious, but it's probably less work than re-debugging old problems until the "clean rewrite" accretes it's own spaghetti-like layer of bugfixes and workarounds.