

What does "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" really mean? - billswift
http://szabgab.com/blog/2009/11/1259431123.html

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billswift
I am a strong proponent of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". But most things
start showing signs of brokenness long before they collapse. If you start
working on something once it starts showing problems, you can usually head-off
total collapses. It's BROKE when things START going wrong, not just when it
collapses into rubble.

~~~
sophacles
I have had people tell me that I should not ever change modules once they are
verified to work the way we need them, even during changes to systems for
version++. They claim "If it ain't broke...". Such thinking is itself broken,
I consider refactoring and adding functionality to keep up w/ specs to be
fixing brokenness. The alternative is layers of cruft which is fragile and
smelly, but preserves some core that is no longer adequate.

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known
I think it is used in context of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technologies>

