Balancing technical debt and getting things done is one of the hardest problems we have. When should we write beautiful, elegant, clean code and when should we just hammer away blindly at the keyboard until it's done? This talk goes in to why this balance is so difficult and covers everything from estimations to refactoring and testing, with a focus on real world PHP apps.

1. The Benefit of Sneezing Code Into
an Editor vs Clean Code
#sneezingcode
joind.in/11457
@dave1010
Dave Hulbert

2. @dave1010
Dave Hulbert

3. The Benefit of Sneezing Code Into
an Editor vs Clean Code

4. The Benefit of Sneezing Code Into
an Editor vs Clean Code

5. The Benefit of Sneezing Code Into
an Editor vs Clean Code

6. Balance

7. Balance

8. Balance

9. Balance

10. Delivering fast is good

11. Good code is good

12. Analogy

14. Aims
●
How to run fast (in general)
●
How to sprint (sneeze)
●
How to run a marathon (clean code)
●
Why you should sprint
●
Why you should run a marathon

15. How to run fast (in general)
●
Developers
– Skilled, Passionate, Healthy, Focused, Disciplined
– (Relevant) conferences, user groups (hello)
– Read books, blogs, code
– Write code, Open Source contributions

16. How to run fast (in general)
●
Projects
– Good communication
– Good specifications / requirements
– Fast feedback
– Good clients

18. How to run slow (in general)
●
Complexity
– Code / System
●
Bad / slow / no tests
●
Bugs
●
Lack of investment
– Servers / Workstations / Software

19. How to run slow (in general)
●
Interruptions
●
Being blocked / waiting
●
Internal processes
●
Too many meetings

20. Aims
●
How to run fast (in general)
●
How to sprint (sneeze)
●
How to run a marathon (clean code)
●
Why you should sprint
●
Why you should run a marathon

21. How to sprint (sneeze)
●
What is sprinting?

22. How to sprint (sneeze)
●
Overtime
●
Ignore everything else
●
Reduce tests / testing
●
Reduce planning
●
Reduce communication
●
Outsource
●
Cut corners
●
Focus; don't improve tools / processes
●
Outsource

26. Technical Debt
●
What is technical debt?

29. Causes of technical debt
●
Deciding to release before it's ready
●
Deciding to use a RAD framework
●
Deciding to skip tests & documentation
●
Lack of understanding (requirements, code)
●
Premature optimisation
●
Software entropy

30. Consequences of technical debt
●
Interest; interest on interest
●
More time on maintenance
●
Less time on new features
●
Harder to estimate new features
●
Miss deadlines

33. Aims
●
How to run fast (in general)
●
How to sprint (sneeze)
●
How to run a marathon (clean code)
●
Why you should sprint
●
Why you should run a marathon

34. How to run a marathon
(clean code)
●
Non-code speed-ups: time & money
investment
– Staff training
– Tools and processes
– Planning / requirements

38. How to run a marathon
(clean code)
●
Clean Code (Uncle Bob)
– SOLID
●
TDD
– Run every bit of code that you write, ASAP
●
DDD
– Model the domain completely in PHP classes that
don't touch the UI, database or framework

42. Refactoring

43. Refactoring
●
Key to keeping up speed in big projects
●
Restructuring without changing behaviour
●
No direct measurable user benefit (not a user
story)
●
Makes it easier to read, understand, test,
change, add new features to
●
IDE makes refactoring easier

45. Refactoring
●
Inject dependencies
●
Decouple (fewer “use” statements)
●
Create interfaces to type hint to
●
Extract functions
●
Rename
●
Reduce cyclomatic complexity (number of
if/else/for/foreach/while/switch in a method)
●
Change depth of inheritance

47. Examples
●
Journey Planner
●
User API

48. Aims
●
How to run fast (in general)
●
How to sprint (sneeze)
●
How to run a marathon (clean code)
●
Why you should sprint
●
Why you should run a marathon

49. Why you should sprint
●
Help you deliver faster in the short term
●
Long term strategy
●
MVP (prove a theory)
●
Disposable prototype

50. Why you should sprint
●
Treat your servers like cattle, not pets
●
Sometimes code is similar

52. Examples
●
Laravel
– RAD framework
– Sacrifices SOLID code (a bit) for ease of use
– Static “facades” (instead of using injected
dependencies)
– $user->save() (instead of $userRepository-
>persist($user) )

53. Examples
●
WordPress
– “5 minute install”
– Low barrier to entry
– Lots of themes and plugins

54. Aims
●
How to run fast (in general)
●
How to sprint (sneeze)
●
How to run a marathon (clean code)
●
Why you should sprint
●
Why you should run a marathon

55. Why you should run a marathon
●
Technical debt is a risk
– Especially with big projects
●
Quality is valuable
●
Deliver faster in the long term

56. Aims
●
How to run fast (in general)
●
How to sprint (sneeze)
●
How to run a marathon (clean code)
●
Why you should sprint
●
Why you should run a marathon

57. Sprint vs Marathon
Sprint (example) Marathon (example)
Peripheral component (logs) Central component (DB)
Trivial (make a CSV) Complex (search algorithm)
Few consequences of bugs (game) Important (nuclear reactor)
Isolated (contact form) Reused (authentication)
Abandonable (migration script) Continued updates
One developer Big team
Time & money to pay technical debt
later
Long term delivery

58. Bonus: estimating
●
Estimates for new features need to include
refactoring
– (if you don't want to increase technical debt)
– Refactoring doesn't add perceived value so it's
hard to sell
●
Technical debt is expensive
– Sprint + paying technical debt interest costs more
than running a marathon + continual refactoring

59. Bonus: Testing
●
TDD is about running your code ASAP
●
Write a test when you fix a bug
●
Fix bugs before writing new code (The Joel
Test)

60. Wish list
●
A script to track TODOs over time (Jenkins?)
●
A tool that helps you decide whether to
sprint or run a marathon

61. Resources
●
Books that I've read at least a few chapters of
– Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering,
Frederick Brooks
– Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software
Craftsmanship, Robert C Martin
– Implementing Domain-Driven Design, Vaughn Vernon
– Modernizing Legacy Applications In PHP, Paul M.
Jones
– More: http://amzn.to/Y29TAK

62. Resources
●
Refactoring http://refactoring.com/catalog/
●
Speed in Software Development
http://www.targetprocess.com/articles/spee
d-in-software-development.html
●
Technical debt
http://www.construx.com/10x_Software_Dev
elopment/Technical_Debt/
●
Images: HBO, Reddit, XKCD, the Internet

63. Thanks!
#sneezingcode
joind.in/11457
@dave1010
Dave Hulbert