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The End of Legacy Code

Legacy code. Did you just shiver with dread?

Daniel Huss

Senior Software Consultant @ Test Double

Schedule Entry

Attendees​

  • Jeremy
RelevancyInteresting
57

Notes​

General Ideal is: The way we think about legacy code. How to influence our thinking in a positive way. Can we make everything we work on be fresh, new and exciting?

Legacy Code​

  • Written {x} years ago
  • Older version of language / framework
  • Outdated paradigm
  • dusty, shadowy, those are the things that make us feel icky.

“Legacy Code”​

Tightly Coupled, unclear, ew,bonkers, convoluted, Janky. It’s the feelings that are evoked. Code I Don’t like.

What drives this? Frustration and fear.​

Frustration​

  • Unclear Composition
  • Inconsistent patterns
  • Convoluted Dependecies
  • Violates Conventions
  • Untested, Flakey

Fear​

  • Changes
  • New Requirements
  • Breaking Things
  • Being On Call
  • Risk, Harm

Progression of a Salty Mindset​

Wait? → Oof! → The heck? → Avoid → ^ → Garbage → Blame → Disgust The Burnout

If you’re not part of the solution. Your not conducting yourself, like a professional. Doesn’t take much to spark something to help your team overcome these things. Someone who is rested, can lead the way, and others can draft like geese in a V.

Eternal Onboarding​

If only I could go back, knowing what I know now. If only I could go back without anything that I know now.

What does this code do?​

Team members have one idea Sales has another idea Logging or tracking give other insights

100% Overlap in Understanding? How is team cohesion?

“Legacy Code”​

Has sole responsibility for things code has no right to be involved in. When we fail to understand and internalize code, the team suffers. Phonograph may feel antique, scratchy, old. But when paired with new music can produce a unique sound.

  • Express everything the app can do for customers
  • Distil 100`s to 1000s + hours
  • Reveal business goals and objectives
  • Limitations and pressures
  • Expressive domain knowledge
  • What’s valuable
  • Onboard Developers Into All That Stuff

These are not the place for code, it’s the place for humans. How to bring these back to the human?

  • Lead with Curiosity
  • Explorer. What Why, who
  • Archaeologist. When people are gone.
  • Pay it Forward
  • Investor Self improving process
  • Put up Markers
  • Sherpa. Put up markers to the oasis and how things work

App Setup, Ew​

  • Volume of services
  • Fragile dependencies
  • Access, secrets
  • Hard to see, heavily customized local dev
  • It’s just Big

App Setup, Improved​

  • Easy to overlook
  • Kickstarts Salty Mindset
  • Project setup is ubiquitous

Onboarding?​

Easy Peasy. What else ya got? As requirements grow, the tests may grow and understanding may be harder to know.

  • Explorer
  • Ask people who know
  • Explore the code to understand
  • Archaeologists
  • Look at PRs or Trello or other task management
  • Investor
  • Is this code even useful?
  • Refactor?
  • Sherpa
  • Document

Tenacity For Engineering Problems​

  • Tinker tinker tinker
  • Code gold and bikeshedding
  • Perfection paralysis

How to help draft and let others take point​

  • Pairing
  • Tools - Git History, PR’s
  • PRs are for documentation. A.K.A me in ten years
  • Team Rituals
  • Retros, backlog processes
  • Social Strength. Build processes together
  • Going Boldly

Enabling Change​

  • Take pressure off the code
  • Get knowledge out of our mind prepare us for the marathon.