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TECHNICAL DEBT – THE CODE MONSTER IN YOUR CLOSET

TECHNICAL DEBT – THE CODE MONSTER IN YOUR CLOSET

NINA ZAKHARENKO

All Things Open 2018 - Raleigh, North Carolina US

Technical debt is the code monster hiding in every programmer’s closet. If you ignore it, it will terrorize you at night.

I’ve worked at many institutions with many programming languages over the past 12 years. They all have technical debt. Putting on a band-aid and ignoring the real issues can be disastrous. We’ll go through several case studies, review big red flags, and learn how to start chipping away at the problem with confidence.

https://allthingsopen.org/talk/technical-debt-the-code-monster-in-the-closet/

Nina Zakharenko

October 23, 2018
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Transcript

  1. What decisions were made in the past that prevent me

    from getting sh** done today? @nnja
  2. Mistakes I Made Early On 4 Not seeing the value

    in unit tests 4 Not knowing how to say NO to features @nnja
  3. Mistakes I Made Early On 4 Overly optimistic estimates 4

    Putting releases over good design & reusable code @nnja
  4. Time Crunch That project was due yesterday! I'll take a

    shortcut, and clean up the mess tomorrow. @nnja
  5. Lack of understanding 1. Have a problem 2. Look up

    a solution on stackoverflow 3. Copy & paste it into your code 4. ??? 5. Bugs! @nnja
  6. Culture of Despair This is already a heap of trash.

    Will anyone really notice if I add one more thing to the top? @nnja
  7. Code Smells 4 Commented out code 4 Incorrect comments 4

    No tests, or worse: broken tests @nnja
  8. Poor Documentation class OrganicGlutenFreePizzaFactory: def get_dough(self): """ Return amazing, organic,

    GMO and Gluten Free Dough """ # ran out of organic gluten free, use the other stuff. # return 'organic gluten free dough' return 'gmo pesticide processed gluten-full dough' @nnja
  9. Architecture & Design... Smells 4 Parts of the code no

    one wants to touch 4 Brittle codebase -- changing code in one area breaks other parts of the system 4 Severe outages caused by frequent & unexpected bugs @nnja
  10. Good Design -> Implementing new features comes easily Poor Design

    -> New features are shoe- horned into the system @nnja
  11. 50 Year Old Technology "And we continue to use the

    COBOL programming language, it is extremely difficult to find IT experts who are versed in this language." @nnja
  12. It's not just the IRS 4 Banks & Financial Institutions

    4 Universities 4 Air Traffic Control 4 ... many still use COBOL @nnja
  13. Story Time 4 I used to work in finance. 4

    At the time I was there, all of the banking systems were run on mainframes. 4 The bankers were getting frustrated. They wanted a UI. @nnja
  14. Big Idea! 4 Let’s write a fancy new web front

    end 4 It’ll do ALL the things @nnja
  15. But 4 Rewriting the backend is too expensive 4 It

    already does what we need 4 Let's leave the mainframe as the backend @nnja
  16. Cursors 4 The mainframe would output a text screen from

    a program result, based on a query. 4 The results would be parsed by reading variables from the screen in certain positions. @nnja
  17. Result? 4 The new system was incredibly slow 4 And

    error prone 4 After months of work, the multi-million dollar rewrite was scrapped @nnja
  18. The MVP 4 (Minimum Viable Product) 4 Get the product

    to market as soon as possible @nnja
  19. A Great Idea 4 A successful project that was created

    by a lone developer in a coffee fueled 48 hours. @nnja
  20. There Was a Problem 4 Years went on, but the

    initial code and design didn’t go away. 4 Instead, it became the base for an expanding project, with expanding features. 4 There was never any time to refactor. @nnja
  21. Scope Creep 4 Features that someone thought was a good

    idea one day, stuck around forever. 4 > “In case we need them. Later.” @nnja
  22. Sad Developers 4 Minimal working tests (no time to write

    them). 4 When a release was pushed, something was bound to break. 4 Made everything feel like it was your fault. @nnja
  23. Grinding To a Halt 4 Development time for new features

    skyrocketed 4 The project was deemed too difficult to maintain 4 ... and cancelled. @nnja
  24. Unless something is on fire, or you’re losing money, don't

    merge unreviewed code into master. @nnja
  25. Ended up with twice as many technologies in their stack

    as needed, and twice as big of a mess. @nnja
  26. Sell It To Decision Makers By allocating project time to

    tackling debt, the end result will be less error prone, easier to maintain, and easier to add features to. @nnja
  27. Ski Rental Problem 4 You’re going skiing for an unknown

    number of days. 4 It costs $1 a day to rent, or $20 to buy. Source
  28. Some lingering debt is inevitable. Don't be a perfectionist. Figure

    out the project tolerance, and work with it. @nnja
  29. Refactoring 4 Slow and steady wins the race. 4 The

    end goal is to refactor without breaking existing functionality. @nnja
  30. Refactoring 4 Replace functions and modules incrementally. 4 Test as

    you go. 4 Tests are mandatory at this step. @nnja
  31. Shelf Life What's the life expectancy of this project? Longer

    shelf life -> higher debt interest @nnja
  32. Technical debt can be strategic If you don't have to

    pay it off, you got something for nothing. @nnja
  33. Making time for refactoring depends on the size of your

    team, and the size of your problem. @nnja
  34. Guidelines 4 Small 4 Devote a week every 6-8 weeks

    4 Medium 4 Devote a person every 1-4 weeks, rotate 4 Large 4 Everyone devotes 10% of their time @nnja
  35. Expect To Be Frustrated The process of cleaning up days

    / months / years of bad code can be analogous with untangling a ball of yarn. Don't give up. @nnja