The Codeless Code: Case 123 Order and Chaos 
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 A certain monk, known for the elegance of his code, had a
habit of refactoring the code of his fellows to match. “For
inconsistency multiplied becomes chaos,” he would explain,
“and chaos breeds complexity, and complexity brings
confusion, and confusion is the mother of ten thousand
defects.”

Master Suku—who above all prized the cleanliness of
code—heard of this. She approached the monk, saying, “I
require your assistance in correcting a problem.”

Suku revealed to the monk a great repository, home to the
source code for the Temple’s most ancient application. Over
the course of decades an uncounted procession of monks and
nuns had passed through its hallowed directories: adding,
removing, refactoring, refining, trying a new framework
here, a new approach there.  Several times the entire code
base had been migrated from one language to another,
scarring the deeper layers with unfathomably bizarre design
patterns. Within one utility class the naming conventions
were so wildly inconsistent that the monk grew dizzy and had
to lie down on the floor.

“Bring order to chaos,” said Suku, and went out.

The monk proceeded in earnest to rewrite the application in
the style he had perfected over so many years. He chose a
glittering new framework to replace the many rusty ones,
then picked one dusty corner of the repository and worked
slowly outwards: adding, removing, refactoring, refining.

The monk had converted the merest fraction of the files when
there came a pounding on his door.

“Emergency!” said the breathless abbot outside, grabbing the
monk by his robe and pulling him out the door. “Disaster!
Disorder! Deadline! Doom! Not enough people and not enough
time; you’re needed at once, come on, come on!”

The monk protested, calling for someone to fetch master Suku
that she might intervene, but the abbot merely flipped the
monk onto his backside and dragged him down the hallway like
a noisy sack of rice.

That evening Suku found the monk, tied to his new
workstation by many coils of strong rope.

“I have seen your commits in the great repository,” said the
master, drawing a long knife which she placed at his throat.
“Where once there had been a hundred styles, there now are a
hundred and one.”

She made a quick motion. The monk cringed, expecting to feel
his life blood spilling inside his robe. Instead the knife
only severed one strand of his hempen bonds.

“Not perfect, but better,” said Suku, and went out.

She did likewise for one hundred evenings until the monk was
freed.

Afterwards the monk meddled less with the code of his
fellows, and instead began to pride himself on his ability
to mimic the design patterns of others when modifying their
applications.

“It is still a truth of refactoring,” he now said, “that
sometimes one must introduce chaos to bring order, just as
the road to the sea must sometimes scale a mountain before
it turns downward again. Yet order is not a destination:
merely a direction from complex to simple, from more to
less. The master asked for less but I thought only of one,
and chose a path worthy of a hailstone when simple
subtraction would have sufficed.”