# Time for re-writing?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/time-for-re-writing/10196>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Tags:** package\
**Created:** [April 6, 2018, 8:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/time-for-re-writing/10196 "2018-04-06T08:03:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 8:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/time-for-re-writing/10196/3 "2018-04-06T08:24:08Z")

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> [@Nosferican](#):
>
> There are many packages that have been left to gather virtual dust for some time and retiring those for new ones would be a gain. One example is JSON → LazyJSON or JSON2.

I am not following the development of these packages closely, but I see activity [from 8 days ago in JSON.jl](https://github.com/JuliaIO/JSON.jl). In light of a [recent discussion](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-biojulia-team-maintaining-the-intervaltree-package-regularly/10173), I think we should be more cautious about pronouncing that packages are (semi-)abandonned or “gathering dust”.

As for the main question, I think it is important to distinguish

1. making sure that packages work smoothly with `v0.7` (no deprecation warnings etc), which can be done now if one has the time, but can wait until it is released (especially if one wants to use magic like [FemtoCleaner.jl](https://github.com/JuliaComputing/FemtoCleaner.jl)),
2. making use of new language features, which should probably just happen automatically when someone touches a particular piece of code,
3. API redesign, some of which will be possible because of new features in `v0.7` (I have big plans for `NamedTuple`s, for example), but some of which is orthogonal to language features and will just happen naturally in due time,
4. complete rewrites _of the same thing_ from scratch, which is rarely a productive activity.

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