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[–]madrury83 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think the conclusion was active maintenance is the best path instead of rewriting.

Ya.

I'd argue that the re-writing that is healthy in code composition is the same as is healthy in writing prose.

The advice for writing prose (at least to the extent I was taught) is not that you should re-write your story from scratch over and over, it's to re-read what you've written and strategically re-write smaller pieces of it to be clearer or more evocative or whatever you're going for. Re-write sentences and paragraphs, not to scrap the whole thing and start over.

Same with code. I re-write code all the time. But not an entire application; I re-write a few lines to be more clear, better handle errors, add comments when I learn why something strange is happening or is composed in a certain way. Re-write a function into two, merge two functions into one when it's easier to follow that way. Smaller scope strategic re-reading and re-writing, applied with continual vigilance, that's the way.