Feb 26, 2010, 12:52 by ijansch
Second time I've seen it, still good. Like the slide designs and the pragmatism.
@dmi isn't that what's in the title and abstract? This is what legacy code is, and the way to deal with it.
Living with legacy code
Rowan Merewood (Feb 25, 2010 at 23:00)
Talk at PHP UK Conference 2010 (English - UK)
Legacy code is a burden that few developers are lucky enough to avoid in their professional lives. We'll look at how legacy code develops and some of the early warning signs to watch out for. Where it's already a problem, we'll explore the strategies that can be used to replace, isolate or integrate that code and some practical methods for achieving it. This talk will weigh these ideas up in terms of time and cost to help you take a pragmatic approach to taming or slaying your monster.
Quicklink: http://joind.in/1455
Slides: Living with legacy code
Comments
Feb 26, 2010, 13:22 by marcgear
Excellent talk, funny, well presented, engaging. Loved the use of comics in the slides, excellent talk. Some great content and links to tools. Check it out if slides/audio are available.
Feb 26, 2010, 13:31 by pettitti
Excellent talk with plenty of useful and practical tools and examples presented. Thanks.
Feb 26, 2010, 14:07 by ianb
Very nice talk about handling working with older code, lots of practical advice which is always a plus!
Feb 26, 2010, 14:09 by dom.udall
Nice, good guidelines on working with legacy code, well presented and structured. Some good quotes too!
Feb 26, 2010, 14:26 by Anonymous
Great talk, Rowan clearly explained all the things you need to consider when dealing with legacy code. Made a lot of not-so-obvious points too. And the comics are just plain cool :)
Feb 26, 2010, 15:02 by le6o
Good speaker, well presented, simple slides and lots of useful suggestions.
Feb 26, 2010, 15:33 by phpcodemonkey
Ace speaker, easy to listen to, good reinforcement of concepts using comics :)
Feb 26, 2010, 16:32 by proofek
Good talk, great slides and lots of humor. Nothing new to me buddy :D
Feb 26, 2010, 17:26 by Anonymous
Good talk. A lot of chuckles. Gone away with some very useful info (mainly the tools mentioned).
Feb 26, 2010, 23:16 by Anonymous
Very good talk, I was very impressed by the tools mentioned.
Feb 27, 2010, 12:25 by webmartjohn
Great talk, amazing to see how much RM has changed his style since moving PlusNet -> iBuildings.
Loved the slides with the oldschool comics, great tools, great process advice. Will be making a lot of use of all of this shortly in my work.
Nice to see someone flying the flag for pragmatism, and testing, and good advice on what to do when you're forced to produce more legacy code based on old legacy code.
I will definitely be yoinking the term 'Technical Debt' to use in conversations with management.
Feb 27, 2010, 14:17 by bwaine
Great talk, excellent slides. I really appreciated the straight forward check lists given for each stage of preparing and dealing with the legacy code.
Definitely useful points to feed back to our client services team as to what resources they should be looking at getting hold of at the start of a legacy project.
Thanks!
Feb 27, 2010, 14:48 by rjharrison
I now realise how much I hate crap legacy code: even a well presented talk by a charismatic speaker upset me.
Mar 1, 2010, 12:53 by PaulLomax
First half was a bit obvious (reading docs, etc) but second half with practical examples of dealing with code was much more useful.
Mar 1, 2010, 14:06 by loonytoons
Really great talk that covered pretty much all aspects of dealing with legacy code. It was well presented with great slides, and from now on when I'm dealing with a soul-destroying timebomb of a bloated legacy system I can dream of all the docs that just couldn't be found or tools couldn't be practically implemented.
Still, we can but try!
Feb 26, 2010, 12:40 by dmi
Not quite what I expected the talk to be - more about reverse-engineering a legacy system that nobody in your team has really been involved in. Fair speaker, and started well, but seemed to lose enthusiasm partway through.