Your Code Base as a Crime Scene
summary
A forensic tour of code that explains why things break: concrete examples include a Java 7→8 File.close behavior change that cost hours, a 3,400-line method that refuses to build, a decision to fork CXF after incompatibilities, and a rushed RabbitMQ→Kafka rewrite that breaks customers. Notes include 80 commits over 18 months on a 30-line block, PRs touching 150 classes, MongoDB 6 deprecations forcing emergency upgrades, millions‑row synchronous updates that time out, and fragile feature‑flag cruft left in production.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction to talk
- 1:52Why we love coding
- 4:00Legacy code challenges
- 5:45External actors impact
- 14:14Internal actors impact
- 27:38Engineers' role in problems
- 36:28Technical shortcuts risks
- 42:27Codebase problems reality
- 44:54Positive engineering mindset
- 45:16Closing and Q&A
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