[cjfd]

The point is well taken. Gradually refactoring things is generally a much better and safer road to take. I think it could have been said better, though. 'When programmers say that their code is a holy mess (as they always do) ...' encourages to not take said programmers seriously. And, actually, it not always is a mess. The current code base I am working in, which was largely not written by me, is not something I would call a mess. It is generally not bad despite things that could still be improved in various places. In particular, there are functions that are too long in some places and some things could have been done simpler and in other places there is a bit much boilerplate code but generally it is not bad.