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Will has agreed to present this topic and have a discussion. He will be presenting a 'Practitioner's Report' at OOPSLA 2002 in November on the same topic. The formal title is 'Transformation of a Very Large Application' but the real content is 'How to change a lot of code really fast'.
Will's presentation description:
The presentation shows how we put 16,000 changes into our (very large) application so that we could speed up our data layer interface. The changes were done using the Refactoring Browser rewrite rules. Coupled with a rigorous use of the Kent Beck testCase framework we were almost bug free (about 25 bugs in the 16,000 changes).
John Brant, co-author of the Refactoring Browser, has said that 'the danger is you can change a lot of code really fast'. Actually that's the beauty of it.
From a methodology perspective, being able to change a lot of code 'really fast' means Agile methods are way ahead. They will be much lower cost because the tremendous investment in upfront analysis can be avoided to a large degree if you can safely try and change approaches quickly.
From a software vendor perspective the issue of backward compatibility becomes almost moot when you can offer a rewrite rule change path for existing applications.
Application teams will have much greater freedom to change out major components using the rewrite rule technology. For example changing to different GUI or GUI framework, or switching database vendors is now possible if you understand rewrite rules.
There is no cost to attend. Complimentary pizza and beverages will be provided by Advanced Technologies Integration, Inc. (ATI, www.atico.com).
The AEG thanks Advanced Technologies Integration, Inc. (ATI) for providing pizza, refreshments, meeting space, and support. Also the AEG thanks Pam Rostal and Talent Software for the use of their projector.
The Agile Experience Group meets and collaborates to share experiences, suggestions, and ideas about moving software development efforts towards more agile, more lightweight practices. Extreme Programming (XP), SCRUM, Crystal, FDD, and ASD are agile approaches. See www.agilealliance.com
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