Things are the way they are because they got that way

If you're working on a complex codebase and you're trying to understand the complexity by looking at the codebase then you're looking in the wrong place. That's like the man in Peopleware who loses his keys in a dark street and looks for them in the adjacent street because, as he explains, "the light is better there". A codebase is the way it is because it got that way. Slowly. Over time. If you're looking at the code your looking at the effect and not at the cause. It was the developers that did it!

Things are the way they are because they got that way.