Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Ericson2314 1633 days ago
Yeah I am a big believer in https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

If you do a from-scratch rewrite, you could stay in igorance and might make those mistakes. But if you do a refactor, especially one broken up into many steps like this Linux one, it in fact demonstrates a better understanding the existing code and any nuance than merely leaving it in place!

Not touching scary-looking code is just bad, and not a wise form of humility.