Comments on End Point Blog: Iterative Migration of Legacy Applications to Cake...

I wonder how you can migrate only a part of the da...

2012-01-27T11:41:32.755-05:00

I wonder how you can migrate only a part of the data model this way. At some you want to express one or more entities as Cake models, however, these have to be linked with data that your legacy code is using.

I have run into an issue with legacy_controller, i...

2010-02-26T05:48:33.197-05:00

I have run into an issue with legacy_controller, it seems i would need to handle apache's implicit redirection of http://example.com/dir
do http://example.com/dir/
do I?

This seems very interesting and I would like to ex...

2010-02-08T17:12:56.176-05:00

This seems very interesting and I would like to explore the possibility of using this approach for a legacy application I recently inherited. Could you possibly post a bit more in the way of code samples/snippets? It would go a long way in helping to understand the overall process that you have outlined. Thanks for the post, I'm excited at the prospect of converting my app in this manner.

Hi, Chris. Thanks for your CakePHP work. I'm...

2009-12-16T12:17:25.993-05:00

Hi, Chris. Thanks for your CakePHP work. I'm happy for you that it sounds like your book has received favorable responses.

I think your articles (and presumably your book) offer value for people looking at the iterative refactoring approach as well, and the key point is for people to know that both possibilities exist.

Refactoring/incrementalism certainly offers an easier choice from the business perspective. I've come to feel -- which may reflect the perspective of years in the consulting game -- that what's good for the business in this case is good for the engineering team.

Incrementalism allows us to make a choice at each point: does this particular component suffer in its design/implementation/etc., or is it Good Enough so it can be left alone for now. Oftentimes, I find the desire to rewrite an app to be motivated by a disproportionate focus on a few problem spaces, while many aspects of the extant system are perfectly adequate. So moving forward incrementally lets us keep the good, the okay, and focus on the stuff that really needs an overhaul.

Thanks for your comments. Congrats on the book!

- Ethan

Hey Ethan, thanks for the links to my blog and men...

2009-12-16T11:18:15.383-05:00

Hey Ethan, thanks for the links to my blog and mentioning my book.

You're absolutely right in that the book (and the series of blog posts) goes about showing you how to do a rewrite, instead of a refactor. In-place rewrites are hard, and it's great that you've figured out a way to stick CakePHP in front of your legacy app so you can do iterative updating.

Rewrites aren't always possible, but refactors are pretty easy to sell to nervous managers.

--
Chris Hartjes