Lightning Talk: Escaping the Tar Pit

Nobody wants to inherit a project that reeks but here we are: Stuck in the tar pit.

How can we get out? Could we have avoided it in the first place? In this talk you will learn how to use a few, great Ruby gems that will guide you out of that sticky tar you are in.

This was a lightning talk presented at Scripted Philadelphia '23, a crossover meetup between Philly PUG, PhillyJS, and Phillyrb: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/scripted-philadelphia-a-python-javascript-and-ruby-joint-meetup-tickets-626403759507

Transcript

1. Escaping The Tar Pit Ernesto Tagwerker (@etagwerker) Scripted Philadelphia, June 29th, 2023
2. Founder & CTO @OmbuLabs
3. 🇦🇷 Hi, I’m from Argentina 🦅 I live in Philadelphia 👨💻 I ❤ Open Source
4. Open Source Maintainer rubycritic, skunk, bundler-leak, next_rails
5. Productized Services FastRuby.io UpgradeJS.com
6. OmbuLabs We ❤ Legacy Code We ❤/🤬 Tech Debt We ❤ Maintainable Code
7. Inspiration
8. Chapter 1: The Tar Pit
9. “The fi ercer the struggle, the more entangling the tar, and no beast is so strong or so skillful but that they ultimately sink.” Fred Brooks
11. Tar Pit Symptoms > Projects running over budget > Taking forever to ship small changes > Sacri fi cing quality, increasing tech debt
13. Part 1: Assessing the situation
14. Tech Debt
15. Tech Debt 1. Code Coverage
16. Tech Debt 1. Code Coverage 2. (Un)maintainable Code
17. Code Coverage SimpleCov (github.com/colszowka/simplecov)
18. Code Coverage # Gemfile group :test do gem "simplecov", require: false end
19. Code Coverage # spec/spec_helper.rb if ENV["COVERAGE"] == "true" require 'simplecov' SimpleCov.start do add_group "Models", "models" add_filter "/spec/" track_files "**/*.rb" end end
20. Code Coverage $ COVERAGE=true rake test
21. Code Coverage
22. (Un)maintainable Code n options
23. (Un)maintainable Code n options ( fl og; fl ay; reek; churn; RubyCritic; MetricFu; attractor; rubocop; …)
24. Churn
25. Churn “Code that is constantly changing is hard to maintain so that’s part of my app’s tech debt”
26. Churn $ git log --follow --format=%h default.rb | cat 573c8f5 2ccc5b8 b447bc3
27. Churn $ git log --follow --format=%h default.rb | cat 573c8f5 2ccc5b8 b447bc3 # Churn Count = 3
28. Complexity
29. Complexity “Code that is super complex is hard to maintain so that’s part of my app’s tech debt”
30. Complexity flog
31. Complexity $ flog default.rb => 10.8: flog total
32. Complexity class Default def yay # 10.8 = a = eval "1+1" # 1.2 + 6.0 + if a == 2 # 1.2 + 1.2 + puts "yay" # 1.2 end end end
33. Complexity $ flog foo.rb => 10.8: flog total
34. (Un)maintainable code Churn vs. Complexity
35. Churn Complexity 100 0 1 100_000 user.rb (changed: 2 times; complexity: 100_000 )
36. Churn Complexity 100 0 1 100_000 user.rb (changed: 27 times; complexity: 100)
37. (Un)maintainable Code RubyCritic (github.com/whitesmith/rubycritic)
38. (Un)maintainable Code $ gem install rubycritic
39. (Un)maintainable Code $ rubycritic
42. GPA Pie Graph Complexity (flog) Code Smells (reek)
43. RubyCritic module RubyCritic class AnalysedModule def cost smells.map(&:cost).inject(0.0, :+) + (complexity / COMPLEXITY_FACTOR) end end end
44. RubyCritic module RubyCritic class AnalysedModule def cost smells.map(&:cost).inject(0.0, :+) + # From Reek (complexity / COMPLEXITY_FACTOR) end end end
45. RubyCritic module RubyCritic class AnalysedModule def cost smells.map(&:cost).inject(0.0, :+) + # From Reek (complexity / COMPLEXITY_FACTOR) # From Flog end end end
46. Churn vs. Complexity Churn (SCM) Complexity (flog)
47. 100 0 1 100_000 Complexity Churn
48. 100 0 1 100_000 “Welcome to the good place.” ❤ Complexity Churn
49. 100 0 1 100_000 No one understands these fi les but they work. So don’t change them. Complexity Churn
50. 100 0 1 100_000 Everybody understands these fi les but you need to change them often Complexity Churn
51. 100 0 1 100_000 Complexity Churn These modules are complex and are constantly changing 🤦 🤦 🤦
52. 100 0 1 100_000 Complexity Churn Refactoring level: Hard mode
53. Are you getting into a tar pit, is it a dumpster fi re, or have you found a project which is easy to maintain?
54. 100 0 1 100_000 Welcome to the tar pit. Complexity Churn
56. Tech Debt (Ruby) 1. Code Coverage (SimpleCov) 2. (Un)maintainable Code (RubyCritic)
57. Tech Debt (JS) 1. Code Coverage (Istanbul) 2. (Un)maintainable Code (github.com/ upgradejs/upjs-plato)
58. You are here:
59. Part 2: Getting out of the tar pit
60. How can we gradually pay off technical debt?
61. Measurable Metrics over Feelings (and Personal Opinions)
62. Thank you! @etagwerker 62 ‣ github.com/whitesmith/rubycritic ‣ github.com/upgradejs/upjs-plato ‣ @OmbuLabs ‣ @FastRubyIO ‣ @JSupgrade
63. Thank you! @etagwerker 63 Thank you!
64. Resources 1. https://github.com/whitesmith/rubycritic 2.https://github.com/colszowka/simplecov 3.https://github.com/metricfu/metric_fu 4.https://github.com/julianrubisch/attractor 5.https://www.fastruby.io/blog/ruby/quality/code-quality-ruby-gems.html 6.https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/2bq092/rubycritic/ 7.http://jakescruggs.blogspot.com/2008/08/whats-good- fl og-score.html 8.http://ruby.sadi.st/Flog.html 9.http://ruby.sadi.st/Flay.html 10.https://github.com/makaroni4/sandi_meter 11.https://www.fastruby.io/blog/code-quality/intruducing-skunk-stink-score- calculator.html
65. Resources 1.https://codeclimate.com/blog/deciphering-ruby-code-metrics/ 2.https://www.stickyminds.com/article/getting-empirical-about-refactoring 3.https://www.sandimetz.com/blog/2017/9/13/breaking-up-the-behemoth 4.https://github.com/troessner/reek 5.https://github.com/seattlerb/ fl ay 6.https://github.com/seattlerb/ fl og 7.http://www.sqa.net/iso9126.html 8.https://www.slideshare.net/mscottford/important-metrics-for-measuring-code-health 9.https://dilbert.com/strip/2006-12-08 10.https://www.fastruby.io/blog/ruby/quality/code-quality-ruby-gems.html 11.https://www.fastruby.io/blog/code-quality/code-coverage/rubycritic-4-2-0- simplecov-support.html