Read Code

There are tons of companies who don't use any standards in development whether or not they are, so called, ISO certified. No code repository, No UMLs, No Test cases. What is left in it is 'Code' in folders.

However, every single programmer knows that it is harder to read code than to write new.

So, what the new guys do, is send the old codes to Recycle Bin, and start fresh. However, time and again it has been proved that it is fatal to rewrite an already written and tested code. The old code has been written, tested, optimized, tested and released. If programmers try to re-write all codes again and again development time will increase several times.

In a competitive market, it is fatal for the company to stand still when the entire product is being rebuild from scratch, while the competitor is making small releases periodically slowly wiping you out of scope.

Usually the new programmers will claim that old code is 'junk', however, there is no guarantee that the new one written wont be 'junk' for the yet newer programmers to join. Hence, a manager must watch that project files (documents as well as codes) is being read and followed before starting new work.

The ability to read and understand code is more important than that of writing new code.