I drove by this yesterday and had to go back and take it’s picture. They replaced the telephone poll but avoided having to rework all the wires on the old poll. They chop out the section of the old pool holding the wires and suspend that from the new poll.

I assume moving the wires requires getting each of the N utility companies to come and move their wires. On this street all the polls were these ugly things. I particularly loved this one because you can’t actually move any of the wires. It’s on a curve and they aren’t long enough reach the new poll.

In software rework you rarely get to provide a clear visualization of what a mess things are, and how what sounds simple actually has cascade effects far beyond your wildest imagination. I used to work with a guy who would quietly say, at times like this: “You may not use the word ‘just’.”

I took this picture a short distance from where I took this one. I’m starting to think this neighborhood vast metaphor for software reengineering.