Dissolving Technical Debt on Agile Projects - Smidig 2012

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Experiences with dealing with legacy code while delivering value. Key points: 1) Legacy code costs a lot. 2) Design must be maintained & evolved. 3) Continous refactoring during each task is a way to achieve 2.

Technology

An Agile Approach to
Technical Debt
Is The Only Way

Jakub Holý @ iterate no

by Jon Baldock nz @ flickr

We've all been there - mess of code

by Ignaz Wiradi @ wikimedia

What we would like to have
- clean, structured, fitting

by cotallo-nonocot @ flickr

What we do have. It (likely) started with st. small & clean but requirements evolved
while the design of the code did not - only hacked & patched

God class
● 15 kLOC
● 300 properties
● 320 methods
● 50 constants
● used everywhere

by mandalinarossa @ flickr

Example of legacy - a typical monstrous god class that we were confronted with.

True cost of legacy

Pain <= Time wasted in code archeology, money & time wasted due to bugs being
introduced.
Legacy code matters to business for real money are wasted there.

Refactor!

The only way out is to improve the design

?

How do we get from L to R? The sad answer is we don't.
It took centuries to build R. We can never get from L to R in a reasonable time. There
is too much mess, too much to fix.

Code Churn

Michael Feathers: Getting Empirical about Refactoring

Code-churn driven refactoring: improve where it matters & pays off most - complex &
changed often

=> Boy Scout Refactoring
● Only task-related
● Time-boxed
● Always
● (+ TDD)

Refactoring can go on forever => focus, time-box. Task related => in code that
matters most now/in near future. (We: 1/3 every task devoted to refactoring.)

Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing
Code
Martin Fowler

Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Michael Feathers

Behead Your Legacy Beast: The Mikado
Method
D. Brolund, O. Ellnestam

True cost of legacy

Show to your management; Legacy code = lot of money lost.

Challenge
Large-scale refactorings
● risky => avoid
● sometimes necessary
● boy scout rule doesn't help

Summary
● Design needs love
● Continuous, focused, time-boxed refactoring
● True cost of legacy

Recommended

Retrospectives: Group code reviews:

改 Observe
Evaluate
Teach
Learn
善 Adjust Unify

Something that worked great for us

Questions?

@HolyJak
jakub.holy@iterate.no
theholyjava.wordpress.com

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