There’s a difference between ” it hasn’t changed because it doesn’t need to be changed” and ” it hasn’t changed because it’s impossible to predict the impact of any change, and no one wants to be responsible for things breaking”.
I was once spelunking a file that hadn’t been touched in like 7 years, and there was a weird line where it was adding 2 to the index for seemingly no reason. The comment was like // Sam: not sure why this is off by 2 here. See ticket #12345 for discussion
Whatever issue tracking software it was referencing was no longer used, so that ticket was gone, and who TF is Sam?
And that’s why so many core Linux utilities have worked almost exactly as they did from the very beginning. If your input and output demand no changes, the only improvements left to make are performance.
I inherited code that contained files that were last updated in 1997
That isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, according to the open-closed principle, you should strive for writing code you never have to touch again.
There’s a difference between ” it hasn’t changed because it doesn’t need to be changed” and ” it hasn’t changed because it’s impossible to predict the impact of any change, and no one wants to be responsible for things breaking”.
I was once spelunking a file that hadn’t been touched in like 7 years, and there was a weird line where it was adding 2 to the index for seemingly no reason. The comment was like
// Sam: not sure why this is off by 2 here. See ticket #12345 for discussionWhatever issue tracking software it was referencing was no longer used, so that ticket was gone, and who TF is Sam?
And that’s why so many core Linux utilities have worked almost exactly as they did from the very beginning. If your input and output demand no changes, the only improvements left to make are performance.
I haven’t touched those files. The code works, I don’t need to change it. I’ve mostly been working on the later additions.