Avoid the Rewrite: Rescuing messy software

Do you have old software that no developer wants to touch? It worked fine for decades, your company relied on it and still does. But every time you have someone take a peek, they come out sweating, talking about rewriting it all from scratch? What happened? The messy basement Imagine you're invited to help a struggling business. You walk into the storefront and everything looks great. You're led into the basement and you nearly trip down the stairs. There are boxes everywhere, every surface is covered with junk and papers. It's dark, dusty, downright scary. This is essentially what developers might see when they peek at your older software. But it worked so well for so long, so how did it get so bad? Understanding the history Back to our basement, it wasn't always such a mess. Doug ran the business smoothly for many years, and he was always down here. He wasn't a tidy fellow, but he knew where everything was. Nobody else needed to come down here, and they'd rather not. Over time,…