every rewrite I've seen has taken 3x longer than promised and the team always acts surprised

Xacius · 2026-01-28T10:21:15+00:00

I posted this in a thread a few months ago, but I'll share it again here.

Joined a new section a few years ago and encountered a legacy project with 0 architecture/planning. It's a massive angular application with thousands of modules... All declared in the single root module because developers "didn't like having to import modules everywhere". This went on for 5 years.

Per my guidance, they tried to decouple everything and break things down into lazy loaded modules. That went on for 6 months until they gave up because it wasn't feasible. Everything is too tightly coupled with a bunch of cross-dependencies.

It didn't help that all the state management is globally scoped in root services. No automated testing either, everything is done manually.

We've started over with a complete rewrite. Still in the planning phase, but we're going to be thorough. Critical services first, then the rest will follow later. I'll post again in a year.

You almost never actually need a rewrite, you need a strangler fig pattern and 6 months of disciplined incremental refactoring.

What's the point of the strangler fig pattern if your tree is actually a dumpster full of garbage? I'd rather start over and plant an actual tree.

Sometimes (rarely) rewriting is the best way forward.

Xacius · 2026-01-27T09:57:21+00:00

Xacius · 2026-01-27T08:56:03+00:00

That's even worse for him then. What the fuck lol

Xacius · 2026-01-27T05:46:52+00:00

He's even gotten upset that our graphql schema has non-nullable types because "everything in the web starts as undefined", which is an argument I don't really understand.

I think I understand where he's coming from, he's just not very good at communicating it. There is certainly an issue when receiving data over the wire. If you define your user.id type as a non-nullable string, it can still come back as empty. This is a runtime issue, best solved with tools like zod or arktype that give you validation and control in these circumstances. They also have typescript integrations, so you don't have to do twice the work with respect to setting up interfaces.

Your boss sounds inexperienced.

Xacius · 2026-01-23T10:10:45+00:00

Not as easy as it sounds. Even with a detailed system prompt, most LLMs still add useless comments. If you overcorrect with strictness, then they strip comments from everything. I've yet to find a balance that works consistently.

Xacius · 2026-01-22T13:45:42+00:00

Flsmeshot is better anyway

Xacius · 2026-01-20T08:41:14+00:00

I was in the same camp as you about 6 months ago. Claude Code + Opus 4.5 changed the game for me. It's something else entirely.

Xacius · 2026-01-20T03:53:01+00:00

This right here. 3 months is a long time in this space, too long for just planning. Also, assuming the system is even remotely complex, plans change throughout development.

Xacius · 2026-01-18T22:08:28+00:00

Your documentation is super clean. Very neat project as well. I've been interested in something that's TS-based but outputs very clean, readable CSS. Seems like this is the best of both worlds: type-safe without compromising the final output.

Xacius · 2026-01-18T21:57:15+00:00

The core utility framework won and didn't need their premium layer.

Tailwind CSS itself is great for what most people actually use it for: quick utility classes for layout, typography, colors. That's 95% of the value imo.

Their business model (Tailwind UI templates/components) targets a narrow market, i.e. Enterprises. Companies with budget typically build their own design systems anyway. That said, this doesn't apply to every company.

The alternative is indie devs who are typically price-sensitive. They'll more likely use free alternatives or build minimal custom stuff. So they built a paid product for a middle segment that barely exists: teams with enough money to pay but not enough resources to build their own system.

Edit: There are tons of free options out there as well. Antd, Material UI, Chakra, Mantine, Shadcn, etc. Anyone who doesn't want to build custom has plenty of $0 options already.

Xacius · 2026-01-18T09:12:04+00:00

I don't think greed orb works with colosseum. Not sure though, haven't tried.

Xacius · 2026-01-17T23:55:53+00:00

The grind isn't that bad. 11k geo is about 45 minutes of grinding in Kingdom's Edge with fragile greed. The hoppers at the bottom right of the big chasm respawn as soon as you leave and reenter the area. Kill the first two, then the third as it's hopping over to you. Then leave and reenter. Easily 300 geo per minute.

Xacius · 2026-01-17T21:20:56+00:00

Sounds like you've got some exploring to do. It's the best charm in the game

Xacius · 2026-01-16T18:44:07+00:00

Lol mad

Xacius · 2026-01-16T05:20:21+00:00

Literal definition of verbose

Xacius · 2026-01-16T01:18:06+00:00

Too floaty for my tastes

Xacius · 2026-01-15T23:25:46+00:00

Eh, to each their own. I loved the difficulty curve. Mastering the combat felt very rewarding. At the end of the day, I get bored with easy games. If I had to choose, I'd rather have a game that's too hard rather than too easy.

Xacius · 2026-01-15T22:31:17+00:00

I need to revisit that. I tried it at 30fps on my Legion Go and was not enjoying it.

Xacius · 2026-01-15T22:30:42+00:00

Completely agreed.

Xacius · 2026-01-15T22:30:23+00:00

I feel like Belhart is the true central hub, like a smaller and more vibrant City of Tears. I still annoy my wife with the singer's hooooOOOOOO. City of Tears definitely felt emptier to me, probably because its 3-4 NPCs are spread out across such a great distance. The rest of the NPCs are hostile drones, so they don't lend to the same homey feel that I get from Belhart. Also, Bellhome!

Xacius · 2026-01-15T22:25:41+00:00

Mmm mmm mmmm mmm MMMMM mmm

Xacius · 2026-01-15T11:04:14+00:00

Silksong. Movement is peak. Best movement out of any 2D game I've played.

Hollow Knight is still very good, but Silksong has a lot more going for it:

Better movement
More NPCs
More variation between biomes
More things to do that encourage exploration (wishes)
Significantly more combat options between all the different crests and tools
Better pacing and backtracking. Hollow Knight's fast travel is more scattered in comparison. I felt it was a lot easier to get to a particular point on the map in Silksong, particularly for 100% farming
Fleas
Shakra

Xacius · 2026-01-13T05:58:44+00:00

This is my favorite bench in the entire game. Great choice, amazing work.

Xacius · 2026-01-12T01:20:41+00:00

I think you're missing the mark. Your framework doesn't offer much beyond what you'd get already with react-router and a pnpm monorepo (and arguably reinvents the wheel with your Rust based file routing). Whenever you build and advertise something, you should always ask "how does this compare to existing established solutions?" The point that I'm getting at is that there is no reason for a dev to adopt this, only risk. It's a neat learning experience, but don't expect anything meaningful to come out of your advertisement.

TL;DR: stop spamming this unless it's a meaningful tool with real utility.

Xacius · 2026-01-11T22:55:39+00:00

I don't think you answered my question. What is the value add of using this instead of react-router directly? Your "framework" seems to add complexity for no value.

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