Does anybody re-write old projects?

We have finally finished our migration to SQL 2005 at the weekend. That is 2 migrations to Windows 2003 and 2 migrations to SQL 2005 as well as upgrading our main accounting package. We started on Friday evening, did the main work during Saturday and the testing Sunday, so everyone here is a bit tired now. We have not been able to undertake any development work for the past 2 months because of this upgrade, but now it is over I can get back to what I love; writing code. This lead me to wonder with all the new technology coming out of MS at the moment, what are other peoples stance with older but still useful projects. Do you re-write the old Intranet to encompass Linq etc...

As I have grown as a developer I sometimes look at my old code, shudder and think 'Why did I do it that way, this other way would have been much better.' There is such a difference as to how I code now and how I did just 3 years ago. Do you take the stance of 'If it isn't broke, don't fix it' or do you attempt to get all projects using the same technologies/methodologies, basically singing from the same hymn sheet.

When I started at my current place I wrote a fantastic (well I think) customer facing reporting suite. It runs with hardly any problems, but now I hate the code base so much and would love to re-write it. Should I bother?

3 Comments

  • I re-write to a fault sometimes, but I usually try to make sure there's SOME measurable benefit to it, even if it's just making things easier to maintain.

  • An important factor for me is 'upgrade-ability' ... Will anticipated or established requirements for a future version/release be more troublesome and full of hacks if a re-write is not done?

  • Thanks guys, two of these apps will be expanded on some time this year so perhaps for upgrade-ability I will rewrite parts of them.

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