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Comment on Ask HN: Senior engineers, how do you deal with poorly written software?

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Does it work? If it works then you have to think twice before any changes. The irony is, poorly written often also means unintended consequences if once you refactor. Balloon grabs are the worst.

The business doesn't care about "aesthetics". It cares about results. I'm certainly not going to defend poorly written software, only that it all depends on your POV. So unless un-poorly can deliver significant value to the business it's best to consider other ways to deliver value.

https://github.com/97-things/97-things-every-programmer-shou...

It cares about results

It's impossible to reason about, much less implement, fixes and features when the existing structure is special-case-ridden and incomprehensible.

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