Refactoring or Rewriting? What is a more viable option for business owners?

Are you rewriting or Refactoring? Which option is the most feasible & beneficial for your business? When is refactoring a better option, and when is it wise to rewrite from scratch? App owners must have the correct information about their differences.

There is a high degree of volatility associated with software engineering projects, and also imperative for releasing full-fledged products and delivering fully developed projects to the end-users. They are the demons that need taming and control by product owners.

During the dedicated product development lifecycle, developers and teams are constantly being changed. Hence, this is possible that sometime shortly, you will have to choose either to rewrite or refactor the existing software.

In this blog, we have introduced the concepts of project refactoring and rewriting and given a quick comparison of these concepts:

What is Project Refactoring?

Code factoring isn’t a new concept, and you would have heard of the same a lot. Several explanations with varying degrees of complexity are generally aimed at persons with varying technical knowledge and skill command levels. From now on, we’ll stick to the basics and avoid getting into too many technical specifics.

So, what exactly is refactoring the entire project? Refactoring is reorganizing current project functionality to make future upgrades easier. This might entail upgrading to recent versions of third-party libraries and reducing overall code complexity. Small elements of the functionality can be rebuilt, but most of the time will be spent tweaking the system functions to comply with the standards.

A widespread assumption is that refactoring has a fixed endpoint, after which the application will miraculously be well structured. Refactoring is, in reality, a development process, not a project.

Generally, we must distinguish between code reworking and a “major cleanup operation.” For convenience, I’ll stick to this informal vocabulary and use the term “refactoring” to describe an extensive process that begins when a poor-quality codebase is received and, for whatever reason, the code cannot or should not be redone from the start.

What is Project Rewriting?

Rebuilding a project implies, as you might expect, rewriting the code from the beginning. The process of coding is largely restarted during a rewrite. The critical benefit of Rewriting is that developers will not be constrained by old code. It is then easy to employ more modern technology.

Rewriting a program, instead of refactoring, provides the programming team with a blank slate. The legacy code is missing to contend with anymore, although app restructuring will almost certainly leave some of it behind. This is why most developers would advocate for project rewriting rather than reworking.

Why making the comparison between Refactoring or Rewriting is necessary?

Initially, deciding the view from a financial viewpoint may be optional. But what if your app went live and it’s gaining an excellent crash rate?

You have a great user base who are pleased with the initial features of the app but are looking for new and better features. After some time, your business owner decides to roll out some new features for the app. They believe this would have a significant impact on the growth of the app.

Unfortunately, the firm that developed the product earlier is unavailable now for more work, or you were dissatisfied with its work for whatever reason.

As a Product Owner entrusted with finding an appropriate development team to continue working on your product, you’ve been encouraged to rebuild the app several times. Does this even make sense? Isn’t the corporation merely attempting to take advantage of you while securing a possible longer-term contract? How could it assist your firm and the current product? This and a plethora of other legitimate questions spring to mind.

There are several reasons you want to “start from scratch .”What could these reasons be?

• The newly added features aren’t compatible with the existing architecture.
• The codebase is full of errors, and there’s no way around it.

The real issue here lies with the legacy code; you are fully aware that this code can cause loss at this time. Some well-known risks are associated with working with a bad-quality legacy code. Such as:

• A faulty codebase that hampers the developer’s motivation.
• Implementing the new features from the ground up is time and money-consuming.
• The app could be more stable and hence results in better user retention.

What are the Pros and Cons of Refactoring an app?

Here are some significant advantages of Code Refactoring:

• You can start with one piece while handling one issue at a time. This practice helps maintain the stability of the app.
• In Rewriting, you would have to complete the codebase to see any changes or benefits, but in refactoring, you can still reap the benefits even if you leave the process in the middle.
• You can update the app in several milestones rather than doing it all at once.
• You have ample time to test the features against the existing applications rigorously.

The disadvantages of app refactoring are as follows:

• It is more difficult or frequently impossible to switch technologies during refactoring.
• Refactoring can enhance a portion of code; fundamental architecture issues are more challenging to resolve.
• One of the most challenging aspects of refactoring is ensuring that the system complies with business requirements. As a result, refactoring frequently necessitates extensive testing and debugging, raising the overall expenses of the process.
• Most of the time, refactoring doesn’t require a brand-new stack of technologies. Finding motivated engineers to implement it is more complicated.

What are the Pros and Cons of Rewriting an app?

Rewriting an app is full of perks. A few of them are as mentioned below:

• You are concluding and learning from past errors. There’s a significant probability that you could avoid problems made by the previous developers and produce easily maintained code. In the end, it will hasten the creation and upkeep of your future apps.
• New market prospects, such as new users, markets, platforms, and technologies, can be created by writing brand-new code. Rewrites take care of the inescapable headache of modifying the old code to accommodate new technological demands and organizational needs.
• Writing new code opens up new commercial opportunities, including new users, markets, platforms, and technologies. Rewrites eliminate the unavoidable difficulty of adapting the old code to meet contemporary technology and organizational requirements.

Disadvantages of rewriting an app:

• Users will only receive regular updates if you rewrite the old software after reworking it, which could cause user retention to drop to deficient levels.
• Deciding to completely redesign your software without maintaining it concurrently is equivalent to giving your rivals an extra year or two of a head start. That’s a lot in the software development industry, and bad strategic planning has led to the closure of businesses.
• To provide any anticipated benefits, a rewrite must be finished. A considerable setback is releasing an app with limited functionality because it may irritate your users.

When to rewrite the app?

Responsible developers would always make informed decisions on what’s best for their client’s businesses. A fully developed and working product with a great client would be better than a product that is rewritten several times and not released.

When to refactor the app?

There are some scenarios where-in refactoring an app is a better decision than rewriting. Let’s see what some of these reasons are:

• The code is trivial in its current state, and you intend to fundamentally alter the project’s design.
• Since the original project’s source code has been lost, a full recovery is either impractical or not worthwhile.
• Most of the business needs and use cases included in the initial product are no longer relevant or in use.
• The app has a minimal number of active users.
• You either have some business rules documentation, or you’ve decided to keep the old application running while simultaneously developing the new and old app.

Costs associated with Rewriting or Refactoring the app

Keep in mind that the overall cost of redesigning progressively is nearly always more in the long term than executing a total overhaul. Still, the effect on the company and active users is unquestionably lower. If there isn’t much to be done and the program can get by with minimum maintenance, the cost of restructuring can be much lower.

If the program will not need many more features in the future and can get by with the existing levels of reliability, rewriting it is a potentially disastrous strategic blunder. If that’s not the case, and you can explain and justify a rewrite, you’re a reliable developer, then go ahead and do it.

In general, the cost of rebuilding and temporarily maintaining the system is cheaper than sustaining the present system over time.

However, there is a high implicit cost to rebuilding an application. Your rivals may have gained an advantage by upgrading their solutions with an enhanced user experience during the time you spent on a thorough overhaul. As a result, there is no standard response; each issue must be examined individually, ideally with the assistance of mobile specialists.

Wrapping Up

Long-term projects that have been developed and maintained frequently impose the choice of whether to rework or rewrite the program. Remember that a decision to restructure an app rather than discard it should not be based solely on a time frame or some intuition. To pursue this line of action, you must have crystal-clear, convincing, and understandable justifications.

When deciding whether to restructure or rewrite code, avoid using absolutes.

Additionally, you should guarantee that your development staff is experienced and ready to assume your position. You need the kind of folks that won’t simply and unambiguously urge for a total rewrite for their transient comfort.

If you’re interested in hiring skilled developers, contact Netsmartz.