As code grows, it evolves; that is the natural progression of software. New features get added and older unused ones get removed. But what happens if they don’t? More often than not, this happens because “we might need this in the future!”. It ends up like a sheep that hasn’t been sheared in years, covered in matted wool that makes it three times the size it needs to be. Why do we do this to ourselves?

I was recently asked to review a proof of concept for a new design. It was frankly, a mess. The core tenet of this design is that it tried to solve problems the team has or may encounter. Ever. Full stop. The day after I was asked to look into a legacy system, written by someone completely different. It suffers the exact same problem, but this one was “successfully executed” and now contains a confusing net of data that will frankly take some of the best minds a long time to decipher what’s going on.