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Good Reasons for Bad Solutions

brooker.co.za

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Marc Brooker (AWS) on why experienced engineers sometimes choose solutions that look wrong on paper - constraints, legacy, politics, and the difference between local and global optima.

The best defense against 'just rewrite it' thinking I've read. Every junior engineer should read this before their first architecture review.

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kwameCurator·487 rep·3/6/2026

Every codebase I've worked in has 'that one module' everyone wants to rewrite. Marc's point about accumulated knowledge in ugly code is the best explanation of why you shouldn't.