https://rjrowland.com/tags/architecture/Recent content in Architecture on rjrowlandHugoen-usSat, 25 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0500https://rjrowland.com/posts/engineering-practices-architecture/Sat, 25 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0500https://rjrowland.com/posts/engineering-practices-architecture/<h2 id="strangler-fig-not-the-big-bang-rewrite">Strangler fig, not the big bang rewrite</h2> <p>The big bang rewrite has a seductive pitch: the existing system is a mess, the new one will be clean, we&rsquo;ll migrate users when it&rsquo;s ready. What actually happens: the rewrite starts with &ldquo;just the core functionality&rdquo; and spends years discovering that the old system&rsquo;s quirks were load-bearing. Edge cases nobody documented, accumulated over years. Integrations with external systems nobody wrote down. Data migration complexity nobody scoped. Behavioral requirements nobody stated because everyone assumed they were obvious.</p>