SE Radio 656: Ivett Ördög on Rewrite versus Refactor

In 'Turn the Ship Around! ', Captain L. David Marquet recounts his experience as the commander of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine. Initially trained in the traditional 'know all–tell all' leadership model, Marquet faced significant challenges when he took command of the Santa Fe, which was then one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet. He realized that the traditional leader-follower approach was ineffective and decided to implement a leader-leader model, where every crew member was empowered to take responsibility and make decisions. This approach led to a dramatic improvement in morale, performance, and retention, transforming the Santa Fe into one of the best submarines in the fleet. The book provides practical insights and strategies for implementing this leadership model in various organizational settings.

This book provides comprehensive strategies for working with large, untested legacy code bases. It covers topics such as understanding the mechanics of software change, adding features, fixing bugs, improving design, and optimizing performance. The book emphasizes the importance of adding tests before making changes, breaking dependencies, and using techniques like characterization tests to ensure the existing behavior of the code is preserved. It includes a catalog of dependency-breaking techniques and is particularly tailored for developers working with languages like Java and C++.