5 ms·
"Does everybody agree on what legacy IT is? What counts as legacy?" The salesperson's standard definition is, "That which I didn't sell you." The coder's defi
by cafard 6y ago
"Does everybody agree on what legacy IT is? What counts as legacy?"
The salesperson's standard definition is, "That which I didn't sell you."
The coder's definition too often is, "Not in a language I think cool."
- tartoran 6y agoOr something that many can’t service. Ive seen legacy apps in PROD for which only the binary existed and nobody was exactly sure what it was doing, they had an idea and workarounds for when it breaks.
- lmkg 6y agoI think you could make a good definition based on the institutional knowledge of a system, and how much of the system is not included in that knowledge.
- rwbhn 6y agoFlashback to a utility that only existed as a binary, but was key to some prod processes. Even better - by the time I met it, said utility crashed on a SEGV after it accomplished it's task. So SOP became - ok, xxx crashed, we're good to proceed.
- ozim 6y agoCoders definition is: "code I wrote last week"
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoOr code someone else wrote.
- intrasight 6y agoCode I wrote before lunch today ;)
- Fumtumi 6y agoHow about: Using no longer supported libraries Slow development speed due to old standard Old and slow source code repo tool Outdated (os, vms, etc.) development landscape Bad code like missing Tests Isn't legacy a system which was not maintained for a while? I have never seen a well working, up to date, modern system being called legacy. You become legacy when something else superseeded you and now the legacy system needs to be kept alive for whatever migration issue.
- crpatino 6y ago> I have never seen a well working, up to date, modern system being called legacy. "modern" being the operative word here. Every year, new systems that will turn awful to maintain are being developed and deployed into the wild, but as long as the code is still fresh in the original development team's hive mind that cannot,- by definition,- be called "legacy".
- sixdimensional 6y ago"Denoting or relating to software or hardware that has been superseded but is difficult to replace because of its wide use." [1] [1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/legacy https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/legacy
- goatinaboat 6y agoThe real definition of legacy for most developers is “whatever is running in production right now”.
- bdamm 6y agoPrecisely, and often "the thing that's making the company money".
- gherkinnn 6y agoMaybe it’s code a bit like the Iliad. A cornerstone of your organisation but few know how it got there or how it works. And even those who do can’t verify it historically. And monsters. Those too.
- ThePadawan 6y agoI generally try to phrase "legacy" as "something that is surprisingly expensive to maintain and improve". A Mercedes limousine from the 1930s might still drive, and be reliable and stable. Finding parts for it probably requires custom-making them, and that's why I would consider it a legacy car.
- rbanffy 6y agoYou can consider "legacy" as something that's in an ascending curve in TCO.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoLiterally every system that is scaling up is legacy by that metric.
- nine_k 6y agoTCO per customer? If serving your customers, on average, becomes more expensive with time, your system becomes less and less adequate for business.
- Spooky23 6y agoI would define legacy as when the IT system drives the business. When working in government it was really obvious when you’d find these systems, as they were usually modeled after a paper process. The organization usually outgrows the process, then they start building shims to adapt. Newer legacy is harder, as the paper processes were usually better than whatever nonsense was cooked up circa 1997-2007. Paper process people almost always understood the business better than their successors.
- pyrale 6y agoMy definition is pretty straightforward: legacy is every system of which maintainers don't have complete knowledge. Also legacy is a spectrum: there is a difference between that side project you coded 2 months ago and forgot about, and that mysterious cobol mainframe the bank found when reworking the office to open floor.
- Saint_Genet 6y agoI’d argue that “legacy” is only really used to try to sell you something. It’s a marketing term and doesn’t really say anything useful about the nature of a system.
- marcosdumay 6y agoThe way it is usually used, it tends to mean "something we gave-up on paying most of the technical debt". But I've seen some very different usages too.
- Forge36 6y agocoder here: "The thing I'll get yelled at for fixing when someone reports it's broken". Similarly: "Thing I'm not allowed make any enhancements to"
- rakah 6y agoI worked at a financial institution during a migration from one core system to another. I was their "Administrator of Legacy Systems." At the time I thought that the "legacy" was the data we kept in the system - all of the transaction records, account information, etc. At the time I didn't consider it a pejorative, but seeing how the term draws derision these days I'm not really so sure!
- maynman 6y agoOne definition I've heard before (and like) is "code without tests". I don't think that's the only factor, but it's a pretty common indicator.
- mathattack 6y agoThe manager’s definition is “That which is no longer supported” The retiree’s definition is “That which pays for my grandkid’s college”
- lasereyes136 6y agoLegacy is contextual. It means different things in different context so it might be more helpful to understand what legacy means in this context.