[michaelvkpdx]

All professional programmers should continually read Martin Fowler's "Refactoring", in the same way English professors read Shakespeare.

"Refactoring" does not mean "previous programmer was an idiot". Often, the understanding of the problem and the way the code is used change over time. Refactoring is a way of bringing the out-of-control weeds back into healthy symbiosis with the larger garden of code.

I stopped telling clients a long time ago that I'm "refactoring" and instead I just add some extra time to all tasks to account for refactoring on legacy code.