Living the Best Life on a Legacy Project
summary
Argues for refactoring only when business value outweighs risk, using iterative, tiny changes and tests-first characterization to reduce breakage; recommends static analysis with PHPStan and Psalm using a baseline, step inspection with Xdebug step debugging, migrate tests only when it pays, and enforce no tests, no merge plus CI automation for linters, coding standards and security checks; documents tribal knowledge (PlantUML/markdown) and balances developer experience against measurable cost.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Start
- 8:12General skills
- 10:09Peer Communication
- 13:58Define processes
- 16:43Produce documentation
- 20:17Understanding code.
- 23:37Understanding the business.
- 25:50Should you refactor?
- 29:52Make a plan
- 30:38Coding standards
- 32:33Static Analysis "Whack-a-Mole"
- 33:47Make good testing habits
- 34:49Policies
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