John D. Cook • 1/19/2026

Two cheers for ugly code

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The article discusses the potential value in 'ugly' code, suggesting it may contain critical, undocumented domain knowledge. It argues that refactoring such legacy code is often more practical than a full rewrite, as the code has proven useful and embodies hard-won information, even if its aesthetics are poor.

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#code quality #software maintenance #refactoring
Two cheers for ugly code

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