So You Want To Rewrite That...
summary
Platform begins as Drupal (launched 2009) and by 2011 is failing; a rewrite runs through 2013 and escalates into a fraught project where one reservation rewrite alone takes five months and ~10 developers. Team migrates business logic into Java services and a thin Ruby client, moves from Play to Dropwizard, and boosts releases from ~6 per year to daily deploys. Key practice is changed one thing at once; data migration, over‑architecting and culture shifts cause most delays but the end result is a more sustainable, incrementally releasable platform.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Start
- 3:19Everything's not fine.
- 3:38A rewrite will solve all my problems!
- 4:56You can't scale.
- 6:27You can't meet customer demand.
- 21:18Rewrite but keep the language the same.
- 21:54Change only one thing at once (salami slicing)
- 24:58Sell it to the business with Big Scary Graphs.
- 25:57Sell it to your team.
- 29:31Long-time employees may feel threatened.
- 30:30Workflows will have to change.
- 31:40The structure of your team changes.
- 40:57Everything isn't fine.
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