How to work with Legacy (Rails) Code

Why does software become “legacy”?

Many of us have tried to discover ways to prevent code from becoming legacy.

We tried and had good intentions.
We've written books on principles, best practices and design patterns that can help programmers keep their systems clean.
But even the most disciplined will create a mess from time to time.

This talk will cover the main problems, that lead to legacy code and provide some guidance, tools and patterns, 
which can help you to work with legacy code and how to avoid it the next time.

Transcript

1. Railslove We love to build the web. How to work with
 Legacy (Rails) Code Marco Schaden
 @donschado marco@railslove.com
 24.05.2016
2. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 The following is a summary of our own practical experiences enriched with opinions and knowledge of various esteemed experts and super heroes such as Kent Beck Martin Fowler Uncle Bob Martin Michael C. Feathers Katrina Owen Sandi Metz Corey Haines Jay Fields and other respected people Disclaimer
3. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Disclaimer The slides are primarily made with Ruby/JS web developers in mind, but apply in most principles to any language.
 We will see almost no code, but discuss a lot of best practices. You'll understand that I'm not able to show any client code. But I don't need to show you crappy code so that we can have fun about it, everybody wrote crappy code… You will have a lot of homework after this talk :)
4. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Disclaimer If you don’t understand something, don’t hesitate to ask. Slides are available online: https://speakerdeck.com/donschado
5. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Why does software become “legacy”?
6. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Is it the customers fault
 by changing the requirements all the time?
7. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Why couldn't the customer just be happy, with what they first said they need…
8. google: IT+Project+Tree How the customer 
 explained it How the Project Leader 
 understood it How the Analyst designed it 
 How the Programmer 
 wrote it How the Business Consultant described it How the project was 
 documented What Operations
 deployed How the customer was billed How it was supported What the customer really needed
9. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Random developer: 
 “It was not designed to do this, we need to start from scratch..."
10. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Surprise: Requirements Change
11. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Surprise: Requirements Change, all the time!
12. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Surprise: Requirements Change, all the time! Software that cannot tolerate this, is simply poor designed.
13. Hi, I’m Marco @donschado marco@railslove.com Software Developer
 Master of Computer Science
14. T We’re an agile team 
 and develop products for the web. Web applications are more than our daily business. We support our customers in close cooperation from the initial idea through to the launch - and beyond.
15. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016
16. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://www.railslove.com/jobs
17. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Rails…?
18. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 I know this is old, but when you remember web development in 2005, the demo is still awesome.
19. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Ruby A PROGRAMMER’S BEST FRIEND TL;DR Ruby Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) https://www.ruby-lang.org Ruby is designed to be human-oriented. It reduces the burden of programming and tries to push jobs back to machines. You can accomplish more tasks with less work, in smaller yet readable code. First appeared 1995 21 years ago Multi-paradigm: 
 Object-oriented imperative functional reflective dynamically typed
20. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) Rails is an attempt to mold the beauty and productiveness of Ruby into a framework for web applications. • convention over configuration • don't repeat yourself (DRY) • model - view - controller architecture (MVC) TL;DR Rails https://www.rubyonrails.org
21. Legacy Code 21.10.2016
22. This stuff is so 2005, you better use… ELIXIR PHOENIX GO EMBER ANGULAR GRUNT GULP ELM DOCKER REACT WEBPACK BROWSERIFY REDUX FLUX RUST BACKBONE MARIONETTE NODE ES2016 SASS LESS COFFEESCRIPT POLYMER KNOCKOUT METEOR HANDLEBARS EXPRESS BOWER TRAILBLAZER CLOJURE MICROSERVICES TYPESCRIPT
23. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 the hype is a lie
24. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/hype-cycle.jsp
25. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 New technology doesn’t save you from legacy
26. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 If you have lot of free time and are curios about new technology, it’s an amazing time to be a developer. The hype is a lie If you have a real job and maintaining a product, 
 then this doesn’t benefit you unless you rewrite your project every three months, 
 in the hottest tech available. Worse, even if you manage to resist the temptation to do that, 
 people will keep raving about their new toys and making you feel retarded.
27. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Mountain West Ruby 2016 - Surviving the Framework Hype Cycle by Brandon Hays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zc4DSTRGeM
28. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 </introduction> def legacy_code legacy code VS technical debt class You < LegacyCode::Base Change Dependencies Testing Refactoring Bugs Rewrite vs Refactoring Tools
29. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Legacy is not exclusively a bad thing
30. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Most of us see legacy as…
31. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Some may see it differently: #vintage #oldtimer #classic
32. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 many “legacy” systems have reliably served 
 the needs of their businesses generating value (usually it’s the main system and the source of income…) people and processes depend on it just because code is old 
 doesn’t mean it has to be thrown away Some people in our industry call it legacy while the codebase is less than 2 years old?! #vintage #oldtimer #classic
33. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 def legacy_code
34. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 slang for complex, difficult to change code code with many dependencies mostly somebody else's code “old” code with deprecated syntax/features or style highly coupled code / “spaghetti" / ball of mud code you’re afraid to touch code without tests def legacy_code
35. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 The Michael C. Feathers definition: “code without tests” no matter how well written it is, 
 without tests you don't know 
 if a change makes it better or worse def legacy_code
36. Why does software become “legacy”?
37. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 legacy code vs technical debt
38. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 legacy code vs technical debt *sometimes required to move projects forward
39. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 legacy code vs technical debt *sometimes required to move projects forward referring to the eventual consequences of any system design
40. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 legacy code vs technical debt accumulating interest *sometimes required to move projects forward referring to the eventual consequences of any system design
41. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 legacy code vs technical debt accumulating interest *sometimes required to move projects forward referring to the eventual consequences of any system design the result of unpaid debt
42. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 legacy code vs technical debt accumulating interest *sometimes required to move projects forward referring to the eventual consequences of any system design code smells • metaprogramming madness • long parameter list • shotgun surgery • duplicated code • feature envy • large class • long method • case statements • complex conditionals the result of unpaid debt
43. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 legacy code vs technical debt accumulating interest code smells refactoring • metaprogramming madness • long parameter list • shotgun surgery • duplicated code • feature envy • large class • long method • case statements • complex conditionals *sometimes required to move projects forward referring to the eventual consequences of any system design the result of unpaid debt
44. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 So you've inherited some “legacy”… What do you look at first?
45. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Who wrote that crap?
 git blame all the files
46. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 What does crappy code say about the developer who wrote it?
47. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 What does crappy code say about the developer who wrote it? not skilled enough bad person drunk
48. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 What does crappy code say about the developer who wrote it? not skilled enough bad person drunk changing requirements tough deadline had a bad day
49. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 What does crappy code say about the developer who wrote it? not skilled enough bad person drunk changing requirements tough deadline had a bad day it's easy and funny to criticise but you might miss the context, at the time the code was written
50. Only blame the developers?
51. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 missing (product) strategy (no design thinking) unnecessary / tough deadlines unfinished requirements conceptually poor features needless complexity high fluctuation and poor on-boarding not enough training / further education doing agile wrong (yeah, we’re doing scrum/kanban we’re so agile!) The influence of management* on legacy: Even a development process that encourages code reviews and pairing
 can yield bad technical decisions which effect the whole architecture:
52. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 You might miss the context, at the time the code was written
53. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Uncle Bob: “every 5 years, double new programmers, with less than 5 years experience” http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/06/20/MyLawn.html
54. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Doesn't matter, now YOU need to <change something>
55. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Doesn't matter, now YOU need to <add a new feature>
56. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Doesn't matter, now YOU need to <fix all the bugs>
57. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Doesn't matter, now YOU need to <optimize performance>
58. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 change
59. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 changing legacy code is a big deal
60. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 In legacy code, it is particularly hard to come up with estimates that are meaningful. even the simplest code changes take a long time to implement it seems like no amount of time will be enough to understand everything you need to do to make a change Expensive
61. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 How much change can you afford if changes are risky? What changes do we have to make? How will we know that we've done them correctly and haven't broken anything? Risk Often we don't know how much of the existing behaviour is at risk 
 when we make our changes.
62. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016
63. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 1. Identify change points 2. Find test points 3. Break dependencies 4. Write tests 5. Make your changes and refactor Algorithm: Michael C. Feathers
64. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 1. Identify change points 2. Find test points 3. Break dependencies 4. Write tests 5. Make your changes and refactor Algorithm: debugger, inspect, puts, tap, raise, console.log, … most obvious impediment to testing this can be hard for side effects
 sometime requires creative and ugly technics Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it Michael C. Feathers
65. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 1. Identify change points 2. Find test points 3. Break dependencies 4. Write tests 5. Make your changes and refactor Algorithm: debugger, inspect, puts, tap, raise… most obvious impediment to testing this can be hard for side effects
 sometime requires creative and ugly technics Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it Michael C. Feathers
66. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependencies They will try to kill you
67. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 http://blog.npmjs.org/post/141577284765/kik-left-pad-and-npm
68. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Whenever we bring up on our screens a nasty batch of tangled legacy code, we are experiencing the results of poor dependency management. Poor dependency management leads to code that is hard to change, fragile, and non-reusable.
 
 When classes depend directly on things that are hard to use in a test, they are hard to modify and hard to work with. Uncle Bob:
69. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Inversion Principle depend on abstraction instead of implementation don't call 3rd Party APIs directly in Ruby you can do this implicit as a 'protocoll' 
 (we don't care for the type of the dependency)
70. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Inversion Principle depend on abstraction instead of implementation don't call 3rd Party APIs directly in Ruby you can do this implicit as a 'protocoll' 
 (we don't care for the type of the dependency) A B before In UML the arrow points to a dependency
71. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Inversion Principle depend on abstraction instead of implementation don't call 3rd Party APIs directly in Ruby you can do this implicit as a 'protocoll' 
 (we don't care for the type of the dependency) A B before A B after I Interface! Ohai Java! In UML the arrow points to a dependency
72. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Inversion Principle Summary: DIP is primarily about reversing the conventional direction of dependencies from higher level components to lower level components such that lower level components are dependent upon the “interfaces” owned by the higher level components.
73. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Inversion Principle Summary: DIP is primarily about reversing the conventional direction of dependencies from higher level components to lower level components such that lower level components are dependent upon the “interfaces” owned by the higher level components.
74. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Inversion Principle Summary: DIP is primarily about reversing the conventional direction of dependencies from higher level components to lower level components such that lower level components are dependent upon the “interfaces” owned by the higher level components.
75. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Injection class Car def start Engine.new.start end end before
76. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Injection class Car def start Engine.new.start end end class Car attr_reader :engine def initialize(engine = Engine.new) @engine = engine end def start engine.start end end before after (constructor injection) Car.new(V8Engine.new).start
77. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Dependency Injection class Car def start Engine.new.start end end before after (setter injection) class Car attr_writer :engine def initialize end def start engine.start end def engine @engine ||= Engine.new end end
78. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 RubyConf 2009 - SOLID Ruby by: Jim Weirich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKRbsE061u4 GORUCO 2009 - SOLID Object-Oriented Design by Sandi Metz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-2yFMzxqwU
79. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://cleancoders.com/videos
80. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Testing To survive Legacy Code you need to maximise safety
81. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 2 unit tests. 0 integration tests.
82. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 unit test <-----> integration test
83. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 unit test <-----> integration test aka acceptance, end to end , …
84. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 unit test <-----> integration test hard to localize the bug when they fail very useful in bigger refactorings many people
 prefer these
85. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 unit test <-----> integration test hard to localize the bug when they fail fast feedback very useful in bigger refactorings hard to work with
 when lots of little tests fail all the time many people
 prefer these many people
 do these wrong
86. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 unit test <-----> integration test hard to localize the bug when they fail fast feedback very useful in bigger refactorings hard to work with
 when lots of little tests fail all the time many people
 prefer these many people
 do these wrong Use high level tests only to make sure the overall system works 
 and drive the behaviour down to the unit level.
87. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 How to unit test In theory, writing a test 
 for a piece of functionality shouldn’t be too bad. We instantiate a class, 
 call its methods and check the results. What could go wrong? GOALS • comprehensive • stable • fast • few
88. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 The method might not be accessible to the test. 
 It could be private or have some other accessibility problem. It might be hard to call the method because it is hard to construct the parameters we need to call it. We might need to sense through some other object that the method uses. The method might have (bad) side effects modifying a database send notification launching a cruise missile … How to unit test GOALS • comprehensive • stable • fast • few
89. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Rails Conf 2013 The Magic Tricks of Testing by Sandi Metz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSWYvyc42M
90. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Legacy Code is special Testing legacy code requires creative and (sometimes) ugly technics Break all rules if it saves $$$ during development
91. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Rule of thumb for nearly every legacy system: What the system does is more important than what it is supposed to do.
92. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 The tests that we need when we want to preserve behaviour are called characterization tests.
93. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Golden Master Testing wow, such fancy, very noble
94. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 def: Golden Master Testing refers to capturing the result of “a process”,
 and then comparing future runs against the saved golden master version to discover unexpected changes. So you expect, that what it does now, is correct.
95. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Golden Master Testing wow such dirt, very temporary
96. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 1. Use a piece of untested 
 undocumented code 2. Write an assertion 
 that you know will fail 3. Let the failure tell you 
 what the behaviour is 4. Change the test so that it 
 expects the behaviour that the code produces 5. Reason about the code 
 and exercise every branch Golden Master Testing: 6. Repeat until 
 the code is covered
97. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 <<< The idea is: you get some output and save the result (snapshot) and every time you run the test again you compare:
 
 * the same: great the test pass, because everything works as before * different: the test fails and the human has to check the output again >>>
98. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 This seems to be fundamentally wrong Are our tests really testing anything at all? What if you just characterized a bug?
99. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 We are trying to put in a mechanism to find bugs later. Protection for changing things => confidence to refactor
100. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 We are trying to put in a mechanism to find bugs later. Protection for changing things => confidence to refactor A characterization test is not a test you want to keep around. • You use the test to get coverage, • you refactor, • cleanup / write new specs • and then you throw it away!
101. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Highly coupled tests will cost you more money than they save you Add a comment to the tests if you keep them # delete me if I fail They will fail when you need them most to pass while fixing a critical bug making an unrelated change you need to go in production NOW manually checking the output has high error potential Anti Pattern, if you keep them
102. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 But what about the DOM? Legacy JavaScript code usually couples UI and business logic
103. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Get out of managing the DOM, as fast as you can. • test user interaction with an automated browser engine • the DOM represents the state of your application • using #ids or .classes to manipulate the DOM is dead • be careful testing markup, because it will change • use data, rel or role attributes in your tests and to describe behaviour • refactor heavy jQuery code to JavaScript objects • clear separation between UI and business logic
104. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 RailsConf 2014 - Bring Fun Back to JS: Step-by-Step Refactoring Toward Ember by Brandon Hays
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMmaKj8hCR4
105. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Tools
106. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Test coverage analysis Lines of Code (no code is better than no code) Cyclomatic Complexity ABC Score for Code Smells Churn Afferent / Efferent Coupling Mutation Coverage Metrics: Usually language agnostic and a helpful tool, but metrics should never be a goal:
107. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 SimpleCov https://github.com/colszowka/simplecov
108. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/kytrinyx/approvals Golden Master Testing
109. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/bblimke/webmock WebMock
110. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/vcr/vcr VCR
111. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/jnicklas/capybara Capybara
112. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/mattheworiordan/capybara-screenshot capybara-screenshot • powerful in combination with a debugger like • https://github.com/pry/pry
113. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/teampoltergeist/poltergeist Poltergeist • trigger(“click”) is your friend • unit testing jQuery spaghetti is really hard • jasmine-rails gem
114. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSLint JSLint • IDE/Editor integrations
115. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/es-analysis/plato plato
116. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/es-analysis/plato plato
117. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/jasmine/jasmine Jasmine
118. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/troessner/reek reek
119. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/seattlerb/flog flog
120. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/mbj/mutant mutant https://speakerdeck.com/donschado/mutation-testing-with-the-mutant-gem
121. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://github.com/CoralineAda/society Afferent/Efferent Coupling • identify risky hotspots
122. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 https://relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-mocks/v/3-4/docs/basics/ Mock / Stub / Fake Object
123. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Ruby & Black Magic Everything is allowed to get to first coverage instance_variable_get(:@foo) send private / protected methods reopen class and monkey patch attr_accessor capture algorithm in a lambda and use it as assertion for new refactored code import complete staging database dump into your test env
124. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Everything allowed? don’t forget to fix it! we can use reflection and special permissions to access private variables at runtime It is very helpful when we want to break dependencies But unless we deal with the root causes, that make these cheats necessary, we are just delaying the bill
125. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016
126. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Bugs
127. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 When you work on legacy code, you will find bugs throughout the entire process. All code has bugs, usually in direct proportion to how little it is understood. Examine the possibility that someone is depending on that behaviour. Often it takes a bit of analysis to figure out how to fix a bug without causing ripple effects. fixing bugs could be dangerous... What should you do when you find a bug?
128. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Refactoring
129. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016
130. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 the list of refactoring technics is just the beginning composing methods (extract method, replace method with object) moving features (move method, extract class) organizing data (replace hash with object, replace type code with polymorphism) simplifying conditional (decompose, recompose, null objects) making method calls simpler (separate query from modifier, replace constructor with factory) dealing with generalization (template method, extract module, inheritance) learn when to start, when to stop when you have “refactoring tickets” you're doing it wrong (it’s part of your work!) not having the time for refactoring (because of deadlines?) is usually a sign that you need to do some refactoring Refactoring: pay your bills!
131. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 You are likely to see new possibilities, REFACTOR ALL THE CODE to pursue truth and beauty...
132. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 DON’T.
133. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 A big refactoring is a recipe for disaster. As ugly as the mess looks now, focus on the real problems. When you need to add a new feature: add some specs to get confidence clean up add new code refactoring hat, feature hat Don't mix an unfinished refactoring with other new tasks. Your goal is to leave the code computing exactly the same, like you found it. Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it. Discipline
134. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Rewrite vs Refactoring
135. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 When is it easier to start from scratch, instead of refactoring a big mess?
136. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 if it doesn't work at all (code has to work mostly correctly, before you refactor) if it is full of bugs and you cannot stabilize it there are big changing requirements, the current app can't support When is it easier to start from scratch, instead of refactoring a big mess? # depends… + + +
137. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Compromise! Refactor one large piece into components.
 Favour piece by piece rewrite over big bang rewrite and rebuild incrementally.
138. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Compromise! Refactor one large piece into components.
 Favour piece by piece rewrite over big bang rewrite and rebuild incrementally. • focus on the important parts • recover knowledge which got lost in complex code • preserve investment which went into the code already (time, bugfixes, requirements…)
139. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 Compromise! Refactor one large piece into components.
 Favour piece by piece rewrite over big bang rewrite and rebuild incrementally. What's the cost of debt? Which parts are less critical? Think of extra costs for maintenance and extension caused by overly complex code. • focus on the important parts • recover knowledge which got lost in complex code • preserve investment which went into the code already (time, bugfixes, requirements…)
140. Legacy Code 21.10.2016 TL;DR technical debt is the main reason for legacy code
 treat your legacy and former developers with respect
 the business always wins* (changing requirements)
 keep your code well tested
 break dependencies and decouple business logic
 maintenance == refactoring (pay your debt!)
 

141. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Refactoring - Ruby Edition http://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Ruby-Addison-Wesley-Professional/dp/0321984137 TL;DR: http://ghendry.net/refactor.html Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Enterprise-Application-Architecture-Martin/dp/0321127420/ Working Effectively with Legacy Code http://www.amazon.com/Working-Effectively-Legacy-Michael-Feathers/dp/0131177052
 Golden Master Testing: Refactor Complicated Views Katrina Owen: July 09, 2014 http://www.sitepoint.com/golden-master-testing-refactor-complicated-views/ Rails Conf 2013 The Magic Tricks of Testing by Sandi Metz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSWYvyc42M GORUCO 2009 - SOLID Object-Oriented Design by Sandi Metz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-2yFMzxqwU Rocky Mountain Ruby 2012 - Go Ahead, Make a Mess by Sandi Metz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5I1iyso29U 
 RailsConf 2014 - Step-by-Step Refactoring Toward Ember by Brandon Hays
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMmaKj8hCR4 Katrina Owen - 467 tests, 0 failures, 0 confidence - Railsberry 2013 https://vimeo.com/68730418 BathRuby 2015 - Here Be Dragons, Katrina Owen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAUHYzC9kFM Cascadia Ruby Conf 2012 Therapeutic Refactoring by Katrina Owen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4dlF0kcThQ RailsConf 2015 - Getting a Handle on Legacy Code https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsFFjFp7mEE MountainWest RubyConf 2015 - Data-Driven Refactoring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcdliNixNhs Baruco 2013: Design Patterns And The Proper Cultivation Thereof, Corey Haines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqN3TQgsXzI Rocky Mountain Ruby 2013 SOLID and TDD, Sitting in a by Mike Nicholaides https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FidRcixHQos RubyConf 2009 - SOLID Ruby by: Jim Weirich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKRbsE061u4 content[:source]
142. Legacy (Rails) Code 24.05.2016 Have some #legacy #vintage 
 #oldtimer 
 #classic
 App we can help you with?
143. Railslove We love to build the web. KTHXBYE Questions? Marco Schaden
 @donschado marco@railslove.com
 24.05.2016