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Discussion on: (Big) Rewrites

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Blaine Osepchuk

Excellent post, Bertil.

We've got some really old systems at work and we couldn't justify the risk or the expense of attempting a rewrite. We decided to refactor instead. Refactoring allows us to add features and deliver business value without interruption, which is very important for these systems.

When we (software developers) are trying to make a business case for a rewrite, we should be converting the risks to dollar values and including them in the calculation. But from what I've seen and read, most rewrites are undertaken with little thought of the economics.