Monthly Archives: March 2021

If you've ever worked with me, you probably know I'm a big proponent of test-driven development, TDD. It's benefits are great, and drawbacks minimal. Often, the downsides exist in the critic's imagination or come from someone who has little experience with TDD. But if TDD drives our design, what if we already have a design, however bad. How can TDD help with technical debt? Allow me to elaborate. The Usual WorkFlow As a short reminder, TDD works as follows. Before you start writing (or changing) code, you write a failing test. Then, you add or change the…

Once you realize you have a problem of technical debt, or if you want to investigate your code to see if the problem exists at all, there are objective ways of measuring this. Here are some metrics that might interest you. Why Metrics Before we list the metrics, let's briefly discuss why they're important. Metrics can objectify a discussion about technical debt. Some team members may think the situation is extremely bad while others may say everything's fine. These discussions can become emotional, especially if people take criticism on their code personally. Metrics will give you objective,…

I've written several articles on the technical sides of legacy code and technical debt. But now, let's focus on the emotional side, the human factor. I've touched on this previously, but would like to expand on it a bit further. What Frustration Can Lead To Working with legacy code can be frustrating. Especially if there is not enough room to improve it. Or if there is room, but the team can't seem to succeed in improving, for whatever reason. Frustration that is left unaddressed for too long leads to all kinds of bad things. Developers can start…