Agile Software Development: Dealing with Legacy Code and Technical Debt

Course details

In nearly every organization, developers are forced to grapple with old code that gets in the way of writing new features. Is legacy code limiting your development team's agility? If so, let this course be your guide for how to embrace a legacy system and improve it while paying down technical debt. Instructor Scott Ford explains how to review legacy code and fence in the technical debt by creating and running a test suite. He also demonstrates how to introduce dependency management and update dependences and tools, how to remove noise and distractions from your code, and how to keep technical debt at bay by remaining test driven and monitoring code quality.

Learning objectives
Assessing the technical debt
Creating and running a test suite
Handling failing tests
Updating dependencies and tools
Paying down technical debt
Remaining test driven
Monitoring code quality

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Embrace the legacy and tackle the debt
02 - What you should know
03 - Definitions

1. Getting Started - Review the Technical Debt

04 - Familiarize yourself
05 - Remember the prime directive
06 - Take ownership
07 - Set up a dev environment
08 - Skim the code

2. Fence in the Technical Debt

09 - Technical debt grows without tests
10 - Create a test suite (if one is missing)
11 - Run the test suite
12 - Handle failing tests
13 - Build out test coverage
14 - Build dependency behavior tests

3. Improve Your Tools

15 - Aging tools make technical debt worse
16 - Introduce dependency management
17 - Update dependencies and tools

4. Pay Down Technical Debt

18 - Remove noise and distractions
19 - Read by refactoring
20 - Isolate external services and devices
21 - Code like a scientist

5. Keep Technical Debt at Bay

22 - Technical debt will grow like weeds
23 - Stay test driven
24 - Practice refactoring
25 - Keep code clean
26 - Monitor code quality

Conclusion

27 - Next steps