What is legacy? What does it have to do with building new software? Why does it annoy us as software developers? Why does it worry us as business owners or product managers? Why do we ignore it as forward-lookers?  What’s so great about technology anyway that makes us do this?

What exactly is legacy?  I believe that legacy software is not always the evil, boring thing that we believe it to be - and that before you decide on building a new software platform or product you should go through a process to define and refine your legacy and decide if building new is right for you.

In this episode, I introduce some concepts about categorising and understanding your legacy systems.

[[OR LeTS ReTIRE tHE MoNOLIth!!]]

QUOTES

01:09 - Step one for me is categorize your legacy under understanding the landscape. [RB]

01:15 - If you have a system which is just not being used anymore, it's not legacy, that's just obsolete. [RB]

02:23 - your company could be bearing its head in the sand and building something new to avoid looking at the real legacy problem. I call that ostrich legacy [RB]

02:52 - This isn't a simple exercise. It is a strategic one to help you understand where you want to go with your business [RB]

03:32 - The amount of investment or sunk cost made in a software product often puts us off from continuing to support it [RB]

04:00 - This is the sunk cost fallacy fallacy. You had an idea that replacing what you had would somehow be a magical solution to all of your ongoing support and staffing issues. [RB]

04:27 - But let's look at some of the other lies that we tell ourselves about new products. [RB]

04:52 - We will finally be able to retire the monolith, and that is the real hum dinger. [RB]

06:21 - We have heard good things about Kubernetes. We have been told that we need to cut costs. [RB]

07:12 - There is a hidden complexity in bringing something to market. and this is the 80 20 rule [RB]

07:46 - So rather than thinking about the sunk cost fallacy, think about the cost of ignoring legacy [RB]

08:28 - It's a good idea to revisit your legacy categories and your landscape and try and work out how much it will change through the introduction of your new products or service [RB]

09:35 - Take the time to continuously refine your picture of what makes up your product landscape and don't be afraid to make changes [RB]

10:33 - Let's see how Elon Musk get on with his attempts to make Twitter a better platform. If you look at how that product has evolved, perhaps there are a few legacy products and systems there that he might want to think about. [RB]