Legacy Code Refactoring

The Challenge

Most developers spend the majority of their time reading and modifying existing, often poorly documented legacy code. Touching code without tests is terrifying, as any change can introduce regressions that break core business functionality.

What You Will Learn

This hands-on workshop teaches you how to systematically tame legacy codebases. You will learn how to safely introduce seams, write characterization tests to lock down current behavior, and progressively refactor toward a clean architecture without halting new feature development.

• Techniques for safely modifying code without existing unit tests
• Advanced refactoring patterns (Extract Class, Replace Conditional with Polymorphism)
• Golden Master Testing and capturing legacy behavior
• The Micro-steps Strategy: refactoring in tiny, safe increments

Who Is This For?

Software Engineers and QA professionals who maintain aging systems and want to regain control over their codebase through safe, incremental improvements.