

Startup suicide -- rewriting the code - amesign
http://steveblank.com/2011/01/25/startup-suicide-%E2%80%93-rewriting-the-code/

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adrianmsmith
This is a good article on the same topic:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html>

While there are certainly valid points (re-writes take a long time, one might
forget to add features to the existing code while working on the new code), it
is sometimes necessary nevertheless.

Mozilla was a re-write of Netscape 4.6. Can you imagine if they hadn't done
that? Would anyone still be using Netscape today?

When Steve Jobs was brought back on board to Apple they decided to create a
new operating system rather than continue with their legacy Mac OS. OK it
wasn't a complete re-write (they had NEXTSTEP) but it still took years before
Mac OS X was released; many parts are indeed new. Can you imagine what would
have happened had they not taken that decision? Linux, Windows 7 64-bit, and
Mac OS 9?

