Code Archaeology

Define: Archaeology

A discipline involving the study of the human past through its material remains.

This is probably not an uncommon scenario:

• You have an outdated project (or project plan)
• You have some source code (may be in different branches in your source control)
• You have some old emails about what various people needed
• For some reason (low priority, budget, time), things were never done
• You have a list of players who have left the project / company / industry / country

Your task, is to resurrect the project and make it work (again):

I was looking for a word to describe this special branch of Computer Science discipline.  And I think I've found it. 

Archaeology.

In my words, a study of the remains of ideas that were left in the system, and trying to reconstruct the past to work out a picture for the present and the future.