I describe how the Gal Oya irrigation system got better. It's an example that might inspire hope. I also imagine how a software codebase and its team might have a similar improvement. As with earlier episodes, I'm leaning on Elinor Ostrom’s 1990 book, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, and Erik Nordman’s 2021 book, The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom: Essential Lessons for Collective Action. I also mention James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State, which I discuss starting with episode 17. More about Gal Oya and similar projects Uphoff, N.T. "People's Participation in Water Management: Gal Oya, Sri Lanka". In Public Participation in Development Planning and Management: Cases from Africa and Asia, ed. J.C. Garcia-Samor, 1985 Perera, J. "The Gal Oya Farmer Organization Programme: A Learning Process?" In Participatory Management in Sri Lanka's Irrigation Schemes, 1986. Korten, D. "Community Organization and Rural Development:  a Learning Process Approach", Public Administration on Review 40, 1980 (Philippines, Bangladesh) Korten, F. "Building National Capacity to Develop Water Users' Associations: Experience from the Philippines, World Bank working paper 528, 1982 Rahman, A. "Some Dimensions of People's Participation in the Bloomni Sena Movement", United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1981 (Nepal) Rabibhadena, A. The Transformation of Tambon Yokkrabat, Changwat Samut Sakorn, Thammasat University, 1980 (Thailand).  Refactoring books I have liked Martin Fowler, Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, 1999 William C. Wake, Refactoring Workbook, 2003 Joshua Kerievsky, Refactoring to Patterns, 2004 Scott W. Ambler and Pramod J. Sadalage, Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design, 2006 The Strangler Fig pattern Fowler's original blog post A case study I commissioned, way back when.  Credits  "Agriculture in Extreme Environments - Irrigation channel for wheat fields and date palms" by Richard Allaway is licensed under CC BY 2.0.