Chapter 6. The Big Rewrite
This chapter covers
- Deciding the scope of a rewrite
- The influence of the existing software on the new implementation
- What to do with the legacy DB
Before you embark on The Big Rewrite, I hope you’ve exhausted all other options. You tried refactoring the codebase, but you hit an impasse. You investigated the feasibility of replacing your legacy software with a third-party solution, but it would require so much customization that it would be more work than writing it from scratch. You concluded that there’s no getting away from a rewrite, as much as it makes your skin crawl.
Before we move on, let’s remind ourselves why our skin is crawling at the prospect of rewriting a legacy application from scratch.
First, ...
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