[talkingtab]

This. I did not decide to do this, but over time I refactor things. As I gain experience doing that, I realize I have started to write "refactorable code" (you heard it hear first. In JavaScript land (I'm a fan by the way) this is inevitable. JQuery, React, hooks, context, promises, async, ES6, on and on.

The churn in JavaScript is painful, as many people note, the code I started with is now both smaller, clearer and easier to refactor. So yes to refactoring.

[rkangel]

I was lucky to work with a great and experienced SW engineer early in my career. Among other things we were working on a Bluetooth stack of approximately 1 million lines of C.

I had assumed in my naivety that as I got more experienced was that I would get better at doing things right 'first time' and wouldn't need to keep going back and fiddling with code I'd already written because it now wasn't quite right. What I learned instead was that he spent at least 50% of his time re-working existing code.

There are two important things. The right design changes as you add more code. You learn more about what the right design should be as your work on the code.

You're never going to get it right first time. So instead concentrate on continuously making it better.