How We Killed a Language

YaST, the SUSE Linux configuration and installation tool, was automatically rewritten in 2013.
600 000 lines of YCP were transpiled to 700 000 lines of Ruby.

Slides for a lightning talk at PolyConf in Poznań, 2014-10-31.

Transcript

1. How We Killed a Language Martin Vidner @mvidner David Majda @dmajda
5. 5 The Problem 600 000 LoC
6. 6 The Problem 600 000 LoC in YCP
7. 7 The Problem 600 000 LoC in YCP A custom procedural language from 12 years ago that only a dozen people in the world know Maintenance Nightmare
8. 8 The Solution? Rewrite to PHP?
9. 9 The Solution YCP to Ruby Transpiler https://github.com/yast/ycp-killer
10. 10 The Numbers Team 6 people Duration 6 months YCP 600 000 LoC Ruby 700 000 LoC Modules 96
11. 11 It Is Possible Even if it sounds crazy Don't be afraid
12. How We Killed a Language Martin Vidner @mvidner David Majda @dmajda