I think the idea that rewriting from scratch is good is one of the myths open source developers tell ourselves.

That's an excellent point, and I should probably have it tattooed inside my eyelids.

More specifically (or more agile-methods-dogmatically, I suppose), not being able to change bits and pieces of your code on an as-needed basis probably means that there's something missing from your project: a proper revision-control system, for instance, or an adequate test suite. Instead of throwing out your existing codebase (which probably does a lot of things right) and rewriting it from scratch, you might be better off asking "Why can't I refactor the existing code?" and acting on the answer.

On the other hand, "Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow." Arguing with Brooks about software engineering practice feels sort of like arguing with Knuth about typesetting software. If your code does absolutely (or even nearly) nothing right, and you don't mind losing a mildly functional program while you recreate infrastructure, treating the current version as a giant prototype and starting again could be the right thing to do. Chances are good that this sort of thing is easier to do with a personal project than with mission-critical business code.

--
F o x t r o t U n i f o r m
Found a typo in this node? /msg me
% man 3 strfry

In reply to Re(2): rebuilding working code by FoxtrotUniform
in thread rebuilding working code by jfroebe

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.