Ask HN: How to be productive with big existing code base
My #1 rule for existing codebases: Just because you wouldn&#x27;t have done it the way they did doesn&#x27;t mean they did it wrong.<p>I think it&#x27;s developer nature to look at a huge pile of code that someone else wrote and immediately think: &quot;This is a pile of crap.  I can do better, so the first thing to do is rewrite all of this, my way (which just so happens to be _The Right Way_).&quot;<p>Figure out what you&#x27;re trying to do, and what is keeping you from doing it.  Take an iterative approach to get things done.  Realize that after 3 years, they have hopefully fixed a lot of bugs and got to a solution that is somewhat mature and better than you can do in a week.