Ancestors

Written by Jean-Baptiste "JBQ" Quéru on 2025-01-12 at 06:09

"Legacy code" is often code that you want to replace because you don't understand it. The problem is, before you can replace it, you need to understand it, and, once you understand it, replacing it is rarely the cheapest option any more.

[#]SoftwareEngineering

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Written by ⁂iwein⁂ on 2025-01-13 at 07:48

@jbqueru @squads I'd like to have this printed on a t-shirt I can wear to every sales conversation where a prospect comes to us to rewrite, and I want to sell them testing first.

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Written by Squads on 2025-01-13 at 07:51

@iwein @jbqueru This would definitely make a great conversation starter!

Testing first sounds like a solid approach but here is my question;

How often do clients realize the value of understanding their legacy code before jumping to rewrite it?

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Written by ⁂iwein⁂ on 2025-01-13 at 08:23

@squads

It's more subtle than that usually. Typically, the clients are convinced they do understand the legacy code, but in fact they don't.

Usually a new generation of devs doesn't want to touch the legacy, and a prior generation is too overworked to explain all the intricate workarounds and existing processes that keep the whole mess (sort of) functional.

Almost always there are no clear repeatable regression tests (anymore).

Solving that first surfaces the real challenges.

@jbqueru

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Written by Squads on 2025-01-13 at 20:17

@iwein @jbqueru why is it that new generation of devs doesn't want to touch the legacy?

... just according to you?

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Written by ⁂iwein⁂ on 2025-01-14 at 08:10

@squads sorry I was unclear. It's not a younger generation, but the people who came into the company later. I myself have advocated for a rewrite when joining a new company 😅

@jbqueru

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Toot

Written by Jean-Baptiste "JBQ" Quéru on 2025-01-14 at 08:25

@iwein @squads@mas.to The way I see it, it's a matter of experience, but specifically of experience relative to the code in question. Obviously, folks without enough absolute experience also won't have the necessary relative experience, but it's easy to have plenty of experience in other domains and still to be stumped by a piece of code we've never seen, written in a language we don't know, on an OS we don't use, with libraries we're not familiar with...

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