Chesterton's Fence: The Deeper Lesson for Software Engineers
Uncover Chesterton's Fence's deeper lesson for engineers: understand code's purpose, then delete if obsolete. Essential for simplifying systems and adapting to evolving company needs.
You've heard of Chesterton's fence, haven't you? When encountering legacy code, the common wisdom is: DO NOT DELETE! It might serve a crucial purpose you don't yet understand.
However, there's a deeper, often overlooked lesson for engineers: Once you do understand why the code exists, and find that its purpose is no longer necessary, DO DELETE!
Engineering, at its heart, is about simplification. Spending time polishing or maintaining an obsolete step in a process is wasted effort. Remove that unnecessary step.
In a rapidly evolving company, requirements and needs change constantly. What was a brilliant, critical piece of code six months ago could be completely obsolete today. Embrace the continuous process of evaluation and simplification to keep your systems lean and efficient.
Cheers, ~Swizec
Published on October 29th, 2025 in Mindset.
Software Engineering Lessons from Production
I write articles offering genuine insight into the career and essential skills of a modern software engineer. As one reader put it, they are "Raw and honest from the heart!" These insights are fueled by over 20 years of building production code for diverse projects, from side-hustles and small businesses to hyper-growth startups, encompassing both successes and failures.
Join Swizec's Newsletter to receive insightful emails 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career. Get real lessons from building production software—no bullshit. Over 16,000 engineers are already learning from my "raw and honest from the heart" emails.
Here's what another reader, Ashish Kumar, shared:
"Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only newsletter I open and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌"
Senior Mindset Book
Ready to get promoted, earn a bigger salary, and work for top companies? Learn more about the Senior Mindset Book.
Have a burning question you think I can answer? Hit me up on Twitter and I'll do my best.
Who Am I and Who Do I Help?
I'm Swizec Teller, and I transform coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. My content provides no-bullshit, real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Learn to take ownership, gain autonomy, and become a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help you achieve this. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my own career.
Curious about Serverless and modern backend development? Check out the Serverless Handbook for frontend engineers.
Want to stop mindlessly copying D3 examples and start creating your own data visualizations? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization.
To get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking, explore my collections.
If someone amazing shared this letter with you, wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness here.
Need to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com.
By the way, just in case no one has told you yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️