Rewriting code and culture - RubyConf Aus

This is the story of a company that survived a much needed transformation of its product and codebase, but most importantly, of its culture. There's no real prescription for being agile. It's about the journey a team takes to discover how to best work together and deliver great products.

In this presentation, I'll share a candid view of a team trying to overcome a slow product development process. How we refactored our way out of badly coupled code, moved to continuous deployment, and greatly improved our approach to product and software development.

From Ruby Conf Australia, Melbourne 2015.

Transcript

1. Rewriting code and culture Sabrina Leandro @saleandro
2. 1. Lessons from a rewrite project 2. Some code 3. Cultural changes
3. A story about…
6. This is hell!
7. Lessons on rewriting code
8. Know your product
12. That is, where the impact of the changes will be seen sooner. Start where it hurts the most
13. songkick.com Rails app Ruby services
14. songkick.com Rails app Ruby services
15. songkick.com Rails app Ruby services
16. songkick.com Rails app Ruby services Land of legacy dragons
17. Build a new, simplified web app based on core iPhone features so that we can improve the immediate velocity roadblocks and move onto building quickly on top of this core foundation. One main goal
18. • Define project scope • Have a clear deadline • Weekly checkpoints • No new features Know when it ends
19. Deleting your favourite features is hard! But when you know your product, you can be ruthless. Deleting is faster than rewriting
20. Changes in master. Release incrementally. Improve your release process. Validate your assumptions
21. Learn to iterate
22. Release cycle is more than software development. Learn to iterate
23. Release cycle is more than software development. Learn to iterate
24. Release cycle is more than software development. Give developers the right context, and trust them to make the right decisions. Learn to iterate
25. New front-end architecture
26. venue-info event-brief additional-details event-social related-events the Event page
27. controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
28. controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css class EventsController < ApplicationController def show @page = PageModels::Event.new(event) end end
29. class PageModels::Event < PageModels::Base def brief PageModels::Event::Brief.new(@event) end end controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
30. class PageModels::Event::Brief def event_title @event.festival? ? @event.festival_name : @event.headliners.first.name end end controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
31. Duplication in front-end code is okay. DRY is for domain models
32. show.html.erb <div class=“primary”> <%= component(:brief, @page.brief)%> </div> _brief.html.erb <div class=“component brief”> <h1><%= brief.event_title %></h1> </div> controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
33. event.css @import ‘components/event-brief.css’; event-brief.css .brief h1 { color: #f80046; } controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
34. From idea to code. Shared language
35. Fast release cycle = fast build
36. Delete or rewrite tests. Fast release cycle = fast build
37. Delete or rewrite tests. Cost of making a small change must be small. Fast release cycle = fast build
38. Delete or rewrite tests. Cost of making a small change must be small. Monitor errors in production. Fast release cycle = fast build
39. First step towards a service-oriented architecture
40. class EventsController < ApplicationController def show @event = Event.find(params[:id]) … end end class Event < ActiveRecord::Base end controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
41. controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css class EventsController < ApplicationController def show event = Models::Event.from_id(params[:id]) @page = PageModels::Event.new(event) end end
42. class Models::Event def self.from_id(id) data = Services.event_listings.event_from_id(id) new(data) end def initialize(data) @id = data[‘id’] @date = Date.parse(data[‘date’]) # etc. end end controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
43. class Services::EventListings def event_from_id(id) ar_event = ::Event.find(id) ar_event.to_hash end end class Event < ActiveRecord::Base def to_hash { 'id' => id, 'date' => date.to_s, # etc. } end end controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
44. class Services::EventListings def event_from_id(id) response = http.get(“/events/#{id}") JSON.parse(response.body) end end controllers/ events_controller.rb models/ event.rb page_models/ event.rb event/ brief.rb models/ event.rb services/ event_listings.rb views/ events/ _brief.html.erb show.html.erb assets/ stylesheets/ event.css components/ event-brief.css
45. songkick.com Rails app Ruby services Land of legacy dragons
48. Happiness
49. Cultural changes
50. Rewriting culture
51. Rewriting culture …through collaboration between developers, designers, and product managers.
52. Rewriting culture …through collaboration between developers, designers, and product managers. Collaboration builds shared understanding.
53. Culture in practice
54. • Shared language Culture in practice
55. • Shared language • Small releases Culture in practice
56. • Shared language • Small releases • Iterate design and product development Culture in practice
57. Close collaboration from the start • Developers involved in the idea development stage • Kick off meeting to define what we’re building and why Culture in practice
58. Developer and designer pairing • Browser becomes the art board • Wider team gets involved with the way the product looks and feels Culture in practice
59. A clean codebase is just a means to an end. Rewriting culture
60. Learn to collaborate and work in a multidisciplinary team. They make for happier teams, better products, and can even improve your code’s quality. Rewriting culture
61. Links The client-side of SOA http://devblog.songkick.com/2012/08/30/the-client-side-of-soa/ Path to SOA http://devblog.songkick.com/2012/09/06/the-path-to-soa/ Our object-based Rails frontend http://devblog.songkick.com/2012/09/14/our-object-based-rails- frontend/ :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3noDS5uoK8o
62. Thanks! Sabrina Leandro @saleandro