Days in the Life of Mo

Have you ever opened an old project you worked on and just stared at it, wondering who hurt you?

Because let’s be honest, revisiting old code is exactly like going back to an ex. You remember the good parts, sure. That one feature you were proud of. The clever fix you stayed up late to deploy. The way it all just…worked (eventually).

But then you start reading through the functions. You see the inconsistent naming conventions. You realize you didn’t document anything. You find a //todo: fix this later comment and feel physically ill.

//todo: fix this later

It’s giving “I can fix them.”
Except…you wrote the code. So now it’s “I can fix me.”

Exhibit A: The honeymoon phase

When you first start a project, there’s excitement. There’s optimism. You open a clean repository and whisper, “This time, I’ll do it right.”

You’re naming variables like a responsible adult. You’re adding comments. You’re planning the architecture. It’s cute. Like the first few weeks of a new relationship where you’re still pretending you don’t snore.

But then life happens. A deadline hits. A feature gets rushed. Your clean, modular code starts looking like a ball of spaghetti dipped in emotional damage. You tell yourself you’ll come back and refactor later. You don’t.

Just like with an ex, you stay because of the time you’ve already invested.

The break-up

Eventually, you walk away. You ship the product or archive the repo. You move on to better projects. Newer frameworks. You tell yourself, “I’ve grown. I would never write code like that again.”

And then… months later, you get called back in.

Maybe a client wants a new feature. Maybe someone on your team says, “Hey, weren’t you the one who built this?” Suddenly, you’re staring at lines of code like they’re old texts from a number you swore you blocked.

“Hey stranger… u up? We need to patch a security hole.”

You vs. past-you

Here’s the thing: working with legacy code you wrote yourself is deeply humbling. It’s a weird combo of:

• “I was so naive.”
• “Wow, I was clever here!”
• “Why on earth did I do this?”

In fact, Robert C. Martin talks about this in Clean Code; how code should be written for the next person who works on it. And that next person often turns out to be you, six months later, cursing your own choices.

According to a 2022 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 74% of developers reported spending time every week just reading and understanding existing code. That’s a lot of reconciling with our “exes.”

Forgive, refactor, move on

So how do you work with old code without spiraling into an existential crisis?

Here are some tips I’ve learned:

• Take time to understand what’s going on before you start rewriting things. Past-you had some logic, even if it’s buried under emotional baggage.
• Git helps you track what went wrong and when. Don’t underestimate the power of git blame; even if it’s pointing the finger at you.
• Small refactors, added comments, deleted dead code; it all counts.
• I know it’s boring. But future-you deserves better than an unlabeled folder of chaos.
• Pair programming or rubber duck debugging can make digging through the past feel a little less painful.

Also: be kind to yourself. Every dev has been here. Writing bad code is part of learning. If your old code doesn’t make you cringe a little, you probably haven’t grown.

The takeaway?

Working with legacy code isn’t just a technical challenge, it’s a deeply personal one. It’s seeing how far you’ve come, how much you’ve learned, and sometimes, how much you still repeat your old mistakes.

But unlike your ex, old code can change. You can refactor it, restructure it, give it better boundaries.

And maybe, just maybe, turn it into something worth loving again.

---

Enjoyed the read?

Stick around. I write casually, frequently, and with way too many Chrome tabs open. If you enjoy relatable tech stories with a side of sass, hit subscribe and let’s grow through the chaos together