Rewrites Considered Harmful?

ngunton writes "When is "good enough" enough? I wrote this article to take a philosophical look at the tendency for software developers to rewrite new versions of popular tools and standards from scratch rather than work on the existing codebase. This introduces new bugs and abandons all the small fixes and tweaks that made the original version work so well. It also often introduces incompatibilities that break a sometimes huge existing userbase. Examples include IPv4 vs IPv6, Apache, Perl, Embperl, Netscape/Mozilla, HTML and Windows. "

But.. But...

[devphaeton]

This introduces new bugs and abandons all the small fixes and tweaks that made the original version work so well. It also often introduces incompatibilities that break a sometimes huge existing userbase.

Microsoft has created an entire, successful, multibillion-dollar-a-year-profiting business model off of this!!

Sheesh.

Slashdot

[JM Apocalypse]

In light of the preceding article, I propose that we completely rewrite slashdot! In BASIC! This will provide unsurpassed slowness and crashing, making the world better for all!

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you eat lots of paint chips as a kid?

Damed if you do, damed if you dont.

[Kenja]

Slashdoter: Why wont Microsoft just drop the Windows code base and start over? There are too many problems to fix.

Microsoft: Ok, Windows XP and 2003 have a full rewrite of the TCP/IP stack and security system.

Slashdoter: Why did Microsoft rewrite the core OS? They just introduced more bugs and lost the stability and security fixes from older versions of the OS?

Netscape 4.x fast?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, this dude uses netscape 4.x and thinks its fast. next article please.

Re:Slashdot

[[TWD]insomnia]

I propose we redesign Slashdot in brainf*ck instead.

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I propose we rewrite Slashdot in LOGO

Unix vs GNU/Linux

[kps]

Ouch! There goes my karma!

Wow

[Boing]

That article had about the highest flamebait-to-content ratio I've ever seen on Slashdot (and that's SAYING something).

This oughtta be good. (puts on asbestos-lined pants)

I didn't read the article

[billnapier]

It was too messy and unmaintainable. I'll wait until the rewrite comes out to fix all the grammer and spelling bugs.

Re:"DAMNED" has an N in it

[Kenja]

"DAMNED has an N in itbut i'm not going to tell you where"

I do't kow what you're talkig about. I spelled damed correctly.

I can only say one thing:

[Enahs]

Enlightenment DR17.

Re:Full of shit.

[Dark Lord Seth]

Netscape 4 is an awful, crashy, buggy, standards-breaking piece of crap that set the Internet back years.

And what does that make IE? The antichrist?

Rewrite of the article

[seanmeister]

The Problem: Rewrite Mania
Waaaaaaa!!

Case 1: IPv4 vs IPv6
Waaaaaaa!

Case 2: Apache 1.x vs Apache 2.x
Waaaaaaaaaa!

Case 3: Perl 5.x vs Perl 6
Waaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaaaa!

Case 4: Embperl 1.x vs Embperl 2
Waaaaa!

Case 5: Netscape 4.x vs Mozilla
Waaaaaaaaa!

Case 6: HTML 4 vs XHTML + CSS + XML + XSL + XQuery + XPath + XLink + ...
XML is hard! My HTML for Dummies book weighs too much! Waaaaaaa!

Case 7: Windows 2000 vs Windows XP vs Server 2003
Waaaaaaaa!

Conclusion: In Defense of "good enough" and simplicity
Waaaaa waaaaaaaaa!

Harmful

[SEWilco]

"Considered Harmful" is Considered Harmful.

Rewritten version of article

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is my rewritten version of this article:

"Doh! I can't believe I just embarrassed myself in front of 1,000,000 geeks. I'll just go back in my hold now."

There, much better and it removes all the problems like Neil saying that Netscape 4.x is a good browser.

Re:Design desitions

[aridhol]

Specs? Uh...what are they? ;)

Two lenses, held in a frame that keeps them in front of your eyes. Allows the slightly vision-impaired (such as myself) proper vision.

Re:Design desitions

[aled]

I'm a programmer and I disagree. Oh wait...

You Whippersnappers with Your XHTML

[ortcutt]

This is my summary of the content of this article:

Back in my day, when we got home from a hard day of making hoopskirts, we were happy enough to use our K6-II 450's to read plain old HTML 4.0.1 and maybe serve some web pages with Apache 1.3 like my granpappy used to do. Now the kids these days, they got their Althon64 and use Mozilla to read XHTML and probably use IMAP to a remote mail store. Won't those kids ever learn that the world was perfect in 1995 and that no improvement can be made on it except maybe by continually patching the same tools and standards that we already have.

Fight of the Century... not

[ReadParse]

The story says, in part...

"Examples include IPv4 vs IPv6, Apache, Perl, Embperl, Netscape/Mozilla, HTML and Windows"

All props to IPv4 and all, but I don't think it stands a chance against all of those put together (even with Windows on their team).

RP

Re:Fluff Article

[benja]

Okay, so most of the article consists of, "Here's software X. They re-wrote it, and now it's not as good or as accepted. Why'd they do that? They suck."

Hey, that's exaggerating. The article's more like, "Here's software X. They re-wrote it, and now it's not as good or as accepted. Why'd they do that? I'm not blaming anybody, because I know all this is done by volunteers who do a fantastic job. I'm just saying that the benefits aren't sufficiently obvious to make it overwhelmingly compelling. Bizarre!"

Re:Tweaks only go so far...

[localman]

I used to think so. But I was forced by economics at my current employer [zappos.com] to just keep on hacking. For years I predicted the imminent collapse of our system under the weight of a thousand hacks.

But it never collapsed. And the functionality and performance has been greatly increased. And we've added five more developers. And we're profitable.

And because the original design was decent, there have been no catastrophic failures, or impenetrable bugs.

Sure, we've rewritten many small parts of the system, but in a very iterative fashion. And there are some bits of old (ugly) code pushing four years now that still do their job just fine.

Maybe this only applies to web development in perl (small CGIs using simple function-oriented modules with SQL to interface to a DB). And maybe it only works for companies using technology as support (as opposed to the company being _about_ technology). But there it works and it works well.

Maybe here's the deal: we're always doing a "complete rewrite" -- it just takes us a decade and we do it a little bit at a time. But the point I think is that tearing out the guts usually causes more problems than it solves.

Cheers.

Re:Windows XP was a complete rewrite?

[dtfinch]

Notice how if you increment the letters in VMS you get WNT.

Professionally written...

[mypalmike]

Well, it was professionally written, except for the use of phrases and words like "pain in the ass", "jackass", and "asshole".

Re:Perl 6 v Perl 5

[soulsteal]

Perl 6 is perhaps best thought of as a DIFFERENT LANGUAGE which will 'just happen' to be, in many places, very similar/identical to Perl 6.

Sort of how tea is a substance almost, but not completely, not unlike tea.

Re:I didn't read the article

[mindriot]

Aww... this thread is getting too messy and unmaintainable. You should've done a complete rewrite instead:

It was too messy and unmaintainable. I'll wait until the rewrite comes out to fix all the grammar and spelling bugs.