Re:Long Term Refactors
by berkes on Sunday January 28, 2024 @10:52AM
(#39166838)
I've worked on many "Big Bang Releases" and consider all of them a poor choice.
Even the single one that was a huge success: in hindsight, I would've rather migrated that through the strangler-vine-pattern¹. Yes, it worked out fine. We even managed to migrate it rather in budget and on time. The release went OK, and we didn't experience crucial data-loss or lost customers. So by all metrics it was a success. And even then: I won't do it like that again. Because part of the success was just random chance: if the dice had fallen just different, it would've been a much worse migration. And I don't like leaving such stuff over to chance.
Even the single one that was a huge success: in hindsight, I would've rather migrated that through the strangler-vine-pattern¹. Yes, it worked out fine. We even managed to migrate it rather in budget and on time. The release went OK, and we didn't experience crucial data-loss or lost customers. So by all metrics it was a success. And even then: I won't do it like that again. Because part of the success was just random chance: if the dice had fallen just different, it would've been a much worse migration. And I don't like leaving such stuff over to chance.
edit: ¹ https://martinfowler.com/bliki/StranglerFigApplication.html