There’s a difference between ” it hasn’t changed because it doesn’t need to be changed” and ” it hasn’t changed because it’s impossible to predict the impact of any change, and no one wants to be responsible for things breaking”.

[–] rothaine@lemmy.zip 33 points 2 days ago

I was once spelunking a file that hadn't been touched in like 7 years, and there was a weird line where it was adding 2 to the index for seemingly no reason. The comment was like // Sam: not sure why this is off by 2 here. See ticket #12345 for discussion

Whatever issue tracking software it was referencing was no longer used, so that ticket was gone, and who TF is Sam?

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago

And that’s why so many core Linux utilities have worked almost exactly as they did from the very beginning. If your input and output demand no changes, the only improvements left to make are performance.

[–] Drekaridill@feddit.is 2 points 2 days ago

I haven't touched those files. The code works, I don't need to change it. I've mostly been working on the later additions.

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