People are always calling me and asking to redevelop their websites. “It’s not working exactly to specification”, “There is too much technical debt”, “The old developer was an amateur that we hired and they ran off halfway through”. These are comments that I hear all the time. In general, it is not a good idea to rebuild your web application from the ground up for the following reasons:
- It does not take into account the time and energy the first developer put into developing the original site
- It doesn’t solve the problems that are actually plaguing the initial site, if not solved at the root the rebuild will usually also have these problems
- A lot of the time spent redeveloping an application is spent re-implementing features that are actually not broken (simple CRUD functionality)
All rules come with exceptions and this one is no different. There is a time when re-developing the whole application may be a good idea. If the core of the database schema is not properly thought through initially you may have to redevelop your whole site. The reason for this is: the whole application layer is written with the database schema in mind (even if you are using an ORM, which can mitigate this to some degree); if you have to re-design your database you will end up having to re-write both the database and application, and the implement migrations, which in certain cases may end up being pretty complicated. The best way to make sure you are making the right decision is by calling an expert. Feel free to reach out to me directly at (973) 615-7955 for a free consultation.