# Things You Should Never Do by Joel Spolsky

10 Hacker News commenters recommended Things You Should Never Do by Joel Spolsky and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Widely recommended essay arguing against rewriting software from scratch, with its advice still cited as relevant. Critics say parts of it are dated.

## Why people recommend it

- Classic advice against rewriting software (3 comments): "the single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46521322)) "the perhaps canonical article on "don't rewrite" from 2000" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45802905)) "I changed my thoughts on rewriting after reading this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46004800))
- Advice still holds up (2 comments): "All in all Joel's article held up pretty well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48895750)) "I think Joel is still correct up to today" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49698242))
- Influential, often-cited favorite post (3 comments): "This Joel Sposky article is always my northstar" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48894579)) "one of my all time favorite blog posts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46751636)) "Somebody's not reading enough Spolsky." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47135234))
- Go-to reference cited in discussions (2 comments): "This is addressed by the classic article by Joel on Software (which is apt, as it's a classic mistake)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48570667)) "Jarred must not have been aware about the Things You Should Never Do." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48939191))

## What people warn about

- Advice seen as outdated (2 comments): "its apparent wisdom should have been reevaluated for at least the past two decades" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48894600)) "I think the article is showing it's age. It's no longer true." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48891820))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Grug Brained Developer by Carson Gross](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grug-brained-developer.md): 13 recommend
- [Choose Boring Technology by Dan McKinley](https://hackerapproved.com/p/choose-boring-technology.md): 11 recommend
- [The Bitter Lesson by Rich Sutton](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bitter-lesson.md): 10 recommend
- [The Illustrated Transformer by Jay Alammar](https://hackerapproved.com/p/illustrated-transformer.md): 9 recommend
- [A Social Filesystem by Dan Abramov](https://hackerapproved.com/p/a-social-filesystem.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Things You Should Never Do by Joel Spolsky", https://hackerapproved.com/p/things-you-should-never-do/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).