If your code has lasted long enough to be considered “old”, but is still so useful that it can’t just be deleted without a dedicated replacement effort… it’s doing something right.
That’s where the problem lies, we know it’s doing something right but we don’t understand what or how it works, we’re too reliant on it to change it, and the workarounds we have to make to accommodate it are a pain in the arse.
I work with a different kind of legacy system. It was retrofitted to work with SOAP, OOP, and some other modern stuff, but none of the old farts bothered to learn it. When I inherited a SOAP service that system used, I had to learn a lot about it to get what I needed.
And honestly? It’s been a lot of fun. It’s a unique kind of challenge, I’ve practically gained celebrity status at work, and even if it’s nothing I’ll be doing long-term it shows how I can pick up weird systems and work with others to make some miracles happen.
It’s weird that “legacy code” is a pejorative.
If your code has lasted long enough to be considered “old”, but is still so useful that it can’t just be deleted without a dedicated replacement effort… it’s doing something right.
That’s where the problem lies, we know it’s doing something right but we don’t understand what or how it works, we’re too reliant on it to change it, and the workarounds we have to make to accommodate it are a pain in the arse.
Instead of “legacy code” they should call it “veteran code”, because it has seen some shit.
Brb updating my personal lexicon
That is a much better name for it, especially because some of the ways in which veteran code gets creaky does feel analogous to age
I work with a different kind of legacy system. It was retrofitted to work with SOAP, OOP, and some other modern stuff, but none of the old farts bothered to learn it. When I inherited a SOAP service that system used, I had to learn a lot about it to get what I needed.
And honestly? It’s been a lot of fun. It’s a unique kind of challenge, I’ve practically gained celebrity status at work, and even if it’s nothing I’ll be doing long-term it shows how I can pick up weird systems and work with others to make some miracles happen.