This is too small to warrant an article, so I thought I'd just prompt a discussion/suggestion page.
I think it's useful to rewrite a system after you've finally finished it, or after you've finished a part of it. I've been doing this, and I find it really helps simplify a process. Otherwise you can have bug fix after bug fix layered on top of each other, and run the risk of forgetting how earlier parts of your system work.
Additionally, it burns it into your mind if you rewrite it (or parts of it).
Examples may be rewriting your custom movement. For instance, I just finished making a custom movement, and found a few bugs were appearing, which led to more bugs, etc, so I just saved a copy of the original, deleted the whole Movement group and wrote it out again, using the original as a reference/reminder.
This way, I could make it more organised and think of alterations to make to avoid the bugs I had found in version 1.
Then I had the same problem with the Swimming routine, so I saved a copy of what I had so far, and deleted the whole Swimming group.
Remaking stuff not only allows for new ideas to pop up, but different and more efficient methods of doing things too. Once you have the engine or whatever it is, already done - you can take time to experiment whilst you remake it and play with certain aspects of it, and this may well greatly enhance the game as you come across certain things you didn't think you could achieve from MMF.
I did this with the engine for my game, Legacy. I've rewritten the global code from about 250 events in to just 80! And I'm not even finished yet! Also, with playing around with certain things, I came across an effect (almost a glitch!) that I've never ever seen in any other MMF application... and the effect looks so darn awesome, in my opinion, it's what really sets this game apart from every other.
Rewriting code isn't always fun, but is almost always beneficial.
The ol' legend Biax used to re-write his programs so often. Optimising more each time. I'd probably only do it if I lost a backup, but I'm meticulous with backing stuff up so...
Oh, God... I've rewritten the engine for my mmorpg project at least 5 times now over the course of 3 years. Although it's a pain to rewrite everything, it does make the engines much more effecient and bug-free each time. Ontop of it, I find an excuse to redo the graphics along with the coding.
it's not always a good idea if you're not an awesome coder. If you're a bit sucky (like me) you might try to redo your entire engine only to find it's worse than before, or that some problem you solved by luck pops up again.
Although i must admit i did work out a bug quite recently when trying to remake my lil pirate engine. I'll probably not even use the new engine because it's 100% the same as the last one bar the new fix.
So as soon as i add the fix they will be identical.
Although actually i may need to remake the engine because i want to modularize the game so it all runs from one frame.
Oh hell no. Theres more than 500 events in one level of mine. Recreating everything else would be a pain. As long as everything works and there are no bugs, Im okay with it
I usually don't recode things unless their really simple because once I've finished coding it the first time I'm usually thinking "Thank God! It finally works!!!"
I'll normally save a backup, isolate a section of the events that I'm not happy with, and recode them from scratch. There's always a backup just incase you can't get it right for whatever reason and you can make it more efficient or whatever.
I usually rush it the first time, only so that it works, no matter the amounts om events. Then I sometimes go back and try to optimise it, most of the times making it more stable and smarter.
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