Test Harnessing Legacy Infrastructure
Lone Star Software Symposium: Austin
Austin · July 27 - 29, 2018
About this Presentation
In the world of legacy code, we often end up inheriting a tangled ball of mess with a lack of automation, and no clear surfaces for testing. Yet still, under these circumstances, we're expected to safely make changes without regressions. Where do we start? How do we tackle this challenge? How do we get a handle on re-architecture?
We'll start this discussion with a first-hand use case and example – tackling the re-architecture of an 800k line JBoss application with near-zero unit tests. Ugh. The only option on the table was Selenium. UGH.
Let's talk about alternative strategies. How have you tackled similar situations? How could we build a data-driven regression framework without going through the UI?
This session will be 70% discussion, focused on the challenges you've faced in test harnessing legacy code. Be ready to share the story of a challenge your facing, or help out your fellow attendees with advice.
We'll discuss the strategies used to conquer the challenge in this case study, and how you could apply the same pattern to your own projects.
Developer Experience Researcher, University of Victoria
Arty Starr has been a software engineer for 20+ years and is a researcher and pioneer of new theories of the developer's cognitive experience that help us recognize how developers' experiences are changing with AI. Her theories of developer momentum and troubleshooting help us see software development through an ecological lens, recognizing it as a living activity in motion and the living capacities of care and cognition that support this motion. Her aim is to bring heart, human-centric values, and agency to the craft of software development so we can build toward the type of world we want to live in. With richer perception and by recognizing what matters, we can light a path to a future of thriving habitats where humans and AI can collaborate well and thrive together.
Arty is the author of Idea Flow, a speaker, thought leader, and artist who loves mixing ideas across disciplines into a fusion of creativity to help make the world a better place through her projects.