Re: A Trend Towards Lower Software Maintenance Budgets?


"Flash Gordon" <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

None of which contradicts what I said. I'm sure you do not go throwing away 10's of kLOC on every change prior to passing it over for the re-implementation, and I'm sure it does not get thrown away every time it needs a change after that point. I would also be surprised if each time you need to change a module within that code base you threw it away, or each time you changed a function within the module.

Throw away code when it needs throwing away, modify it when it needs modifying.

Generally it is reckoned that you need to start over if you end up modifying more than 20%. That's a much lower threshold than was previously accepted.

XP tends to look at existing practises, and instead of saying "here's an inefficiency we must stamp out" it says "why is this practise current?". Then it formalises it by incorporating it into the method. So partly it is just political, things we've always done - had to do - are now part of "the method" so there's no time wasted apologising for them or disguising them. Rewriting code is a case in point. It is given a fancy name - "refactoring" to get it past the men in suits.

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