How Does Legacy and Tech Debt appear?

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Hello.

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Welcome to the Software Delivery Club.

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My name is Richard Bown, this is episode 23.

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This time, I'm continuing my descent into the philosophical trenches of

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software development and delivery.

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By looking at the question, how does legacy and tech debt appear.

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Or the cost of change working with legacy code.

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Or making tech debt and legacy work for you.

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As you might know already, I'm obsessed with getting to the

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bottom of tech debt and legacy.

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I see them as the same thing, really take that as something that we incur as

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we make choices about building software.

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Legacy is something we refer to systems with, which will be on saving

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perhaps all beyond our control.

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Perhaps they are too full of take that for us to consider working on them anymore.

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Or it's a shortcut for saying that it's something we don't want anymore.

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Either way, these are systems, which we believe we want to move away from.

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Despite the fact they may still be used and may still be

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making us money as a company.

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So I'm reading.

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Michael feather's excellent book.

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Working effectively with legacy code.

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And it gives a lot of great tools for understanding and refactoring the code.

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That you have to deal with in the average or not.

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So average coding job.

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The book does a great job of explaining what changes mean to our code base, how

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we can offset the effect of changes or balanced them with comprehensive test

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suites, plus sensible and effective and pragmatic refactoring and ways of working.

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What the book doesn't explore is where the tech debt and legacy

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come from in the first place.

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It touches on how we get into a situation where we need to deal with it.

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And how to recognize it and what to do about it, but not its Genesis.

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And this is what I would like to dig into in this episode.

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Additionally, I want to understand how much of this legacy and tech

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debt is essential to the work of the software that you have created.

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I've broken down the contributing factors into three groups, systemic,

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functional, and individual.

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These are the areas that forces into making a legacy and tech

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debt decisions as we code.

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So, what do I mean by systemic functional and individual?

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Here are a few examples for each group.

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Systemic factors that create, tech debt are those completely

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outside of the engineer's control.

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But our, within the organization's control.

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For example, a deadline with lots of pressure on it.

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Coding standards or house style, a way of doing things in the house.

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Costs are we limited by resources, people, tools, capabilities.

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Poor specifications.

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A lack of support from management or just as an organization

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that we don't know any better.

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Our understanding or experience is too small.

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Functional factors that create, tech debts are, more within the scope of

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architectural decisions, such as.

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The availability of specific language features or languages.

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The tooling that we're using, perhaps compilers or editors or test

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tools only work in a certain way and limits our ability to express

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ourselves fully or as we would like.

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A lack of specific tooling, effective CI tests, coverage tools, et cetera.

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Constraints in the specification.

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This could even extend to non-functional requirements.

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That require us to structure the code in a certain way for efficiency.

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Or perhaps just unhelpful or wrong architecture.

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So those are some functional factors.

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And finally, in the individual factors are what we do when we're actually coding

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as individuals or even in teams or pairs.

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Things that can drive debt here our inexperience.

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Um, the wrong experience, perhaps, do you think, you know what to do?

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A, lack of knowledge of the technology.

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Thinking, you know what to do with the tools and the techniques.

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Personal style and preference.

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Of course.

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Your own personal way of doing things and coding standards.

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an inability to understand the specification which goes along with

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perhaps a lack of seniority or experience.

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The inability to question the specifications or the requirements.

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Approach to coding may be different for you than it is for the rest of

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the team that you're working with.

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Your mentality, maybe slightly different.

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Or your way of working when it comes to certain techniques like XP or.

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Agile or something would be happening in your personal life at that particular day.

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It could be many of these reasons or any of these reasons.

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The list, especially for personal factors goes on.

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The mood we're in one day to another changes and our

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approach can change with that.

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It is a complex domain of factors, which contribute to legacy and take debt.

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When we start to list them, we see there are lots of them, but we also

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see that they are intimately connected.

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For example, time pressure can cause or exacerbate many of the individual factors.

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You can see that legacy is a consequence of.

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Speed or pressure or inexperience or changing language or tools or

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features, but also many other factors.

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It is therefore pretty much inevitable that something is going to cause a

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legacy decisions to be made immediately.

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Have you ever looked back at a piece of code you wrote years ago and thought,

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whoa, I was pretty good back then.

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Or have you looked back and thought, wow, what was I thinking of?

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Or you think.

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Wow.

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Those were the days where I could do something like that.

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All of these expressions.

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Are of where you were and where the technology was at that particular time.

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Time is an important element at play.

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What may have been impossible for any given reason last year,

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last month, last week, whatever.

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May now be possible through a newly released language feature

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or a new tool or approach or the availability of new system.

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We have to make decisions many hundreds and thousands of them

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every day, potentially these decisions work for the moment.

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We are writing the code.

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There is never a right time to write the code.

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Only the right now.

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That's inevitably means that every stage at every keystroke

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we're committing something that won't be perfect in the future.

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We're making a decision.

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So, how do we know this?

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Well, look how carefully most compiler writers are.

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With ensuring there is backwards compatibility in there.

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Compilers.

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They want the code that you're writing now to be good in the future to.

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They don't want to add to your burden.

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Apart from if you're the writer of the swift compiler of course, a

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few years ago, which was changing with breaking changes all the time.

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Usually once code makes it into production.

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We don't want to see it fall out to support and compiler writers,

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interpreter writers, and people who create tools, which underpin us, as

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software engineers, have our backs.

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So by tackling.

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The list of reasons for having tech debt in the first place, we can

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perhaps approach a situation where we are minimizing the effects of

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these factors in our organization.

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So let's have a look at the list again.

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And see if we can provide some guardrails.

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Um, in order to make our code more future-proof.

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So looking again at the systemic factors.

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If there was a deadline with lots of pressure on it, then.

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Make a statement about it, say that we prioritize quality and supportability.

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If there's conflicts or differences within house style when it

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comes to coding standards.

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Then do you have any architectural decision records or ADRs?

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Have you specified this already and now they're just out of date.

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Do you as an organization need to make some decisions about this.

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And discuss them and communicate them with everybody who's involved in creating code.

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If you're limited by costs when it comes to resources.

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Uh, people tools, capabilities.

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Then make a decision as a business.

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Do you want to be a software business?

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Do you want to invest in these things to make your software better ? If

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you have poor specifications.

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Will you invest in your process?

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Do you allow them to come through to development?

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If they're not up to standard?

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If there was a lack of support from management.

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Do you need to educate your management and educate yourselves?

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To understand what it means to be a software business.

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If you don't know any better as an organization.

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Do you make an effort to understand how you can serve your

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customers better in the future.

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For functional factors if the availability of specific language

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features is a problem, then again, looking at ADR, is there a way to

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investigate options for your code?

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If there are constraints in the specification.

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Make sure the important decisions around trade-offs between functionality

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and performance are fully understood by everybody involved and discussed.

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If a compromise is required, then flag it as such and make a

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plan to improve the situation.

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Compromises a fine, as long as they are time boxed.

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And there was a commitment to revisit them at some point.

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And if the architecture itself was unhelpful or unsuitable, And if

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you're continuously forced into making a decision, which will

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work against the architecture.

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Then perhaps there are too many compromises and it's better to

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step back and revisit the entire architecture at some point in the future.

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Again, have a short-term plan and a longer term plan.

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And understand that this will be a potentially company-wide decision,

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which may take years to implement.

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For individual factors.

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Around experience or the wrong experience or lack of knowledge of technology.

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Then get experienced.

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Use mentors train up-skill.

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Invest in learning about new technologies through reading,

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podcasts, videos, conferences.

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When it comes to personal style and preference provide

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individual freedom for expression.

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But agree and enforce guardrails.

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Testing standards and automate as much as possible and integrate

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regularly at least once a day.

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If you'll stand for too junior and have the inability to understand specifications

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or push back on specifications, then provide an environment for them to ask

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questions and provide them support.

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If the approach to coding is not what you require, then again, provide education.

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If you look at these factors, you want it to some patterns about how we

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can address the causes of tech debt.

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At an organizational level.

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There are choices to be made.

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Can we acknowledge that every shortcut we take builds up tech debt.

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Failure to support the business of software delivery.

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We'll bury tech debt for the future.

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Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

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The debt will be incurred immediately and will be paid back

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at a greater cost in the future.

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This is a fundamental choice.

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Decided what kind of business you are and back that type of business.

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If you are a software business, then act like one.

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In order to do that.

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Prioritize quality architecture and people.

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Your reward will be a reduced cost of change and hopefully happier

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customers with a great product.

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The functional factors invest in the right tools and make it architecturally

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clear where the product is going.

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If there are compromises to be made, then make them, but have a plan to

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fix them in the longer term with a potential investment in the architecture.

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At the individual level.

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Provide a framework of knowledge and skills to support your engineers.

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Providing backing by clear architectural decision and business direction

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to create psychological safety.

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Ensuring there is clear architectural direction plus support from management

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in terms of tooling, training and understanding can create an environment

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where it is possible to create good code the lighter on technical debt.

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These approaches don't come for free, but as a trade off, it's a business decision.

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Again, look at the proof around us that this works.

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Look at what gene Kim says in the unicorn project around psychological safety.

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One of the five ideals of software development.

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Look at Team Topologies.

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A team friendly humanistic approach to software development.

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It gives guardrails for supporting, but allowing freedom of expression.

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The humanist approach to software development is truly

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about limiting tech debt.

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By getting us to enjoy the process of software creation every day.

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Hopefully I've given you something to think about.

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As always thank you for joining me.

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And please leave me a review on apple podcasts.

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Or wherever you're listening to this podcast.

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It's always great to get feedback.

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And as Corey Quinn says, if you enjoy this podcast, then please leave a five star

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This is a one man production.

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And I live for your feedback.

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So please get in touch with me via LinkedIn or via my website.

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You can also find me via CTO problems.com.

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Also a quick plug for my workshop in mid January, 2023.

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I'm running a session on the practicalities of dealing with legacy

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and tech debt from a coding perspective.

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It's hands-on it's free.

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And you can sign up by the link.

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I will leave in the show notes.