How to not rewrite it in Rust

Re:How to not rewrite it in Rust by nullc on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @08:44PM (#21340586)

> (2) You already have other reasons to want to rewrite (design could be improved, code is in a poor state, etc.), and you're deciding between languages.

It would be wise to ignore the language distraction and remember that most urges to rewrite are just flat out wrong. The standard and well respected advice about rewrites doesn't go out the window just because of a fad language, if anything they apply more strongly.

Much of what people perceive as cruft is most of the actual value-- the stored knowledge from years of experience using the software in practice. Few "clean" programs are actually complete.

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Re:How to not rewrite it in Rust by RustyRussell on Thursday October 24, 2019 @01:45AM (#21341959)

Andrew Tridgell once said "you never need an excuse to rewrite something".

But I usually append that quote with "but then again, you're not Tridge" :)

Kernighan and Plauger said "don't patch bad code: rewrite it". That is definitely true. And there's a lot of bad code.

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