I didn’t see what c this was, and I was all set to say “Brother multifunction b/w laser printer”, along with some colored copy paper and a long stapler that can reach the middle of a page. Everything you need to make some bitchin zines.

none of them. linguistic gatekeeping is just disguised contempt for the poor. let people spell however the fuck they want.

Good callout! I agree, don’t rewrite just for the sake of rewriting. By “barely works” I am referring to code that functions but where a small change to the requirements would make it incorrect. In that situation you should “break it” in order to add changes, rather than calcifying the legacy code by building around it.

I’ve worked in programming for the last ten years and the most important skill you might not have guessed: Bravery. People are going to say “if it works, don’t fix it”, but a lot of real-world code barely works, and you need to be willing to break it to make it better.

If you’re good at your job, you will spend a lot of time reading other people’s code and testing small changes to see what happens. Write “new” code for yourself, because it’s fun and its good practice, but also learn to read and repair “old” code.