I tend to think that cargo cult programming and resume-driven development are the intellectual path of least resistance. Perhaps it's analogous to, "I'd rather rewrite this than understand how it works", because that requires less intellectual effort. Quality engineering is not achieved by the intellectually lazy, from what I've seen.
You're not wrong, but when you're inheriting a convoluted 50 file React shitfest that could have been a single HTML page and 20 lines of javascript... what are you going to do? Invest time in understanding that, or radically simplify in 20% of the time it takes to grok what you get thrown at you?
No, a single HTML page and 20 lines of Javascript is clear cut. But there's a _lot_ of instances where it's not that way, and still rewrites are being proposed.
Hint: because almost every web developer is a junior who doesn't know what they're doing.
Proof: that's literally what a significant positive growth rate of an occupation means - if the doubling period is N years, then at any given moment, half the workforce has N years of experience or less. I don't remember the estimate for webdev, but I think N was something between 3 to 5 years.
I tend to think that cargo cult programming and resume-driven development are the intellectual path of least resistance. Perhaps it's analogous to, "I'd rather rewrite this than understand how it works", because that requires less intellectual effort. Quality engineering is not achieved by the intellectually lazy, from what I've seen.