ZOMG: Domain-driven Test-assisted Production Rails Crisis Interventions

Rick Bradley (OG Consulting)

4:25pm Tuesday, 06/08/2010

General
Location: Room 307 - 308

Average rating:

(4.11, 18 ratings)

This talk continues a series of legacy code rescue talks started with the popular “Flog << Test.new” talk from the 2008 Ruby Hoedown where we use detailed code-level snapshots to teach the process of transforming real-world code.

Here the technique goes a few steps further: flog was good code lacking tests, so we introduced a robust suite and did some minor BDD refactorings at the end; but here we are taking critically impaired production code with minimal (or no) tests, reworking the domain model, and using focused testing and refactoring to bring the code to the new coherent domain model, making improvements as we go. Feature behavior of the system is static but the code footprint shrinks, coupling drops, and maintainability takes a huge jump.

The examples given are from rescue missions on large footprint applications where bad software has become a critical hindrance to progress. See how to carefully but quickly make powerful changes to actively-developed production applications in serious need of rescue.

Rick Bradley

OG Consulting

Rick Bradley is fresh off a chapati-laden 6-month traipse around the Indian subcontinent, ostensibly as moral support for his wife (a natural dye artist with a serious indigo problem), but really because it seemed like a good excuse to be lazy about shaving (and other more critical hygiene matters). (co-)Author of whiskey_disk, object_daddy, larry, douche, etc., he enjoys camel rides on the beach, strong silent lingas, and programs much ruby as one of the founders of Nashville’s OG Consulting.