Comment by credit_guy
3 years ago
You are too nice.
I think Chesterton's fence is awful. It's cited as a nugget of infinite wisdom, and it's the opposite.
Anyone who's ever worked in a corporate knows how strong inertia is. Chesterton's way of thinking is the default. Cruft accrues because people are so averse to remove things from the code base. What if anyone needs this fence? Just to be on the safe side, I'll just leave it here. Little upside to remove it, lots of possible downsides. That's how people think.
And this essayist comes and writes it down as some great insight, and people can point to it and get legitimacy.
Everyone, have guts. Be brave and call a spade a spade: Chesterton's fence is the lazy guy's rationalization to leave things as they are. And to look wise doing that.
It is annoying because it seems to have been watered down to “have the correct amount of prudence” at this point. Which is definitionally correct. But we don’t need an analogy to get there.