Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers
SE Radio 602: Nicolas Carlo on Improving Legacy Code
Feb 7, 2024
Nicolas Carlo, author of Legacy Code First Aid Kit, talks about the challenges of dealing with legacy code and shares useful tools and techniques from his book. They discuss the importance of refactoring, naming, and behavioral analysis in improving legacy code. They also explore the Macado method for addressing large tasks and discuss the potential of AI in legacy code improvement.
52:17
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Quick takeaways
- Legacy code is valuable code that developers are afraid to change and includes both untested and difficult-to-modify code.
- When dealing with legacy code, it is generally more effective to make iterative improvements, introduce safety nets, and focus on smaller, manageable chunks rather than attempting a full rewrite.
Deep dives
Defining Legacy Code
According to Nicholas Carlow, author of "Legacy Code First Aid Kit," legacy code is not just old code, but valuable code that developers are afraid to change. It can include code that is not tested, but even tested code can be considered legacy if it is difficult to modify. Carlow emphasizes that legacy code is code that is actively being used in production and has an impact on users, making it valuable and in need of maintenance.
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