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by backslash_16 2548 days ago
For anyone who wants to learn about working with and on a "legacy" code-base, check out Michael Feather's book "Working Effectively with Legacy Code"

In the beginning it goes over code smells and how to find refacing seams in your language of choice (C, C++, or Java) and then each chapter is a group of techniques you can use.

Working on a service that had both a very old monolith and some brand new microservices, I found it invaluable. I think the first lesson I applied from it was using pinning tests for safer refactoring.

1 comments

> I think the first lesson I applied from it was using pinning tests for safer refactoring.

Thanks for the book recommendation. Funny to realize I have done this in the past without prior knowledge; it just made sense.