Legacy code retreat
We invite a group of programmers together for a day, give them some legacy code, and help them practice various design rescue and improvement techniques. The ultimate goal is to practice these techniques in a low-stakes environment away from the code base that probably torments you at work.
Which techniques do you mean?
We don’t have a complete list, but most of our techniques revolve around creating and identifying seams in software (places where we can decouple tightly-coupled modules). You will try adding tests, isolating behavior from frameworks, introducing mocks, writing integration tests, taking baby steps, refactoring conditionals. All in all small techniques that you can bring to work on Monday. What’s the format? 4-6 sessions at 45 minutes each, after which you will throw away your changes and start again.
So, it’s a Code Retreat?
So far, mostly yes. The difference is that we have starting code bases for you, rather than asking you to start with a blank slate. Also, we are using the Code Retreat format to teach specific techniques, so we guide your practice more like a (karate) dojo than Code Retreat does.
Which languages and platforms?
So far C#, C++, Java, Php, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk.
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