I have one reason to refactor that's served me well. Does the code exhibit ongoing edge/corner case bugs, which are attributed to the implementation not being factored in the first place? Another sign of this situation is exhaustive test cases which combine factors as they can't reliably be tested in isolation. Distributed logic is another common pattern, where a new feature is made by sprinkling bits of logic here and there, just so, and it all seems to do what's required. You know the kind, where onboarding a new person might lead to the discussion of how this section of your Rube Goldberg contraption works. A fancy way to this world is a poorly designed and maintained home-grown DSL.
Continuing to build on such a 'foundation' is madness that spirals to code red situations: stop-the-world, no feature development, until shit gets stable.
Continuing to build on such a 'foundation' is madness that spirals to code red situations: stop-the-world, no feature development, until shit gets stable.